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Validity of Thoracic Injury Criteria Based on the Number of Rib Fractures
Technical Paper
856027
Sector:
Language:
English
Abstract
Most of the thoracic injury criteria proposed these past years
are based mainly on the analysis of data obtained from experiments
with human cadavers and are related principally to rib fractures.
And yet, the actual threat to life incurred in real accidents
results from lesions to intrathoracic viscerae that are not
necessarily correlated with the number of rib fractures. Moreover,
the injuries sustained by cadavers during experiments are mainly
rib fractures. In these cases, visceral lesions are unusual and not
necessarily identical with those sustained by real accident
victims.
Preliminary results of measurements concerning rib strength and
dynamic behavior of the cadaver thorax in frontal impacts show the
rib cage offers a low resistance against compression and the
vertebral column acts as a stop. The combination of these various
data leads to questioning the validity of thoracic injury criteria
based on the number of rib fractures observed on human
cadavers.