Article Sidebar
Published:
Feb 10, 2023Keywords:
Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publishing rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Read more here: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Main Article Content
A silver bullet? The role of radiology information system data mining in defining gunshot injury trends at a South African tertiary-level hospital
Abstract
Background: South Africa (SA) has no national injury surveillance system, and hence, nonfatal gunshot injuries are not routinely recorded. Most firearm-related injuries require multidetector computer tomography (MDCT) assessment at a tertiary-level facility. MDCT scanning for victims with gunshot injuries thus provide an indication of the societal burden of firearm trauma. The potential of the modern radiology information system (RIS) to serve as a robust research tool in such settings is not fully appreciated.
Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of institutional RIS data in defining MDCT scanning trends for gunshot victims presenting to a tertiary-level SA hospital.
Method: A single-institution, retrospective, comparative study was conducted at the Tygerberg Hospital (TBH) Trauma Unit for the years 2013 and 2018. Using data-mining software, customised RIS searches for information on all gunshot-related emergency computed tomography scans in the respective years were performed. Demographic, temporal, anatomical and scan-protocol trends were analysed by cross tabulation, Chi-squared and Fisher’s exact tests.
Results: Gunshot-related emergency MDCT scans increased by 62% (546 vs. 887) from 2013 to 2018. Lower-limb CT angiography was the commonest investigation in both periods. A higher proportion of victims in 2018 sustained thoracic injuries (12.5% vs. 19.8%; p < 0.01) and required imaging of more than two body parts (13.1% vs. 19.2%; p < 0.01).
Conclusion: By using RIS data to demonstrate the increasing gunshot-related MDCT workload in the review period, as well as a pattern of more complex and potentially life-threatening injury, this study highlights the burden of firearm trauma in the society and the potential role of the modern RIS as a robust research tool.
