Abstract:

In the past, blast injuries were mainly caused by war-related incidents. However, despite the current lack of war-related activities, blast injuries are still seen due to unintentional low explosive material blasts which are mostly seen on children’s hand. However, the classification for the severity of this type of injury is still unclear. The aim of this study was to assess the incident, patterns, and severity of hand blast injuries among pediatric patients treated in Dr.Hasan Sadikin General Hospital. Twenty two pediatric patients in Dr. Hasan Sadikin Hospital Bandung from 2013–2017 were included in this study. All data were extracted retrospectively from patient medical records and the degree of injury severity was assessed using Hand Injury Severity Score (HISS). There were 22 hand injuries caused by explosion identified in 18 boys (82%) with the age range of 5 to 15 years. Hand injuries from explosions have a specific pattern with the hand radial side experiencing the most severe damage including the thumb (16 cases), index finger (16 cases), and middle finger (14 cases). The severity of the injuries varied from mild (3 cases) to moderate (4 cases), severe (7 cases), and major (8 cases).  A high incidence of major hand blast injuries is found among pediatric patients with the hand radial side tends to suffer the most severe damage.

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