Introduction.

Patients who suffer some type of trauma have a highly variable presentation, which is why diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines have been designed in order to reduce the number of unnecessary laparotomies. Current tools for the prediction of intra-abdominal infections allow early interventions in high-risk patients and a better postoperative clinical follow-up. The objective of this article was to study the factors associated with the development of intra-abdominal infections or abdominal sepsis after laparotomy due to penetrating trauma.

Methods.

Descriptive study of a cohort of patients treated for penetrating abdominal trauma at the Santander University Hospital, Bucaramanga, Colombia, between January 2016 and December 2018. Data analysis was performed using Stata® software, version 14 (Stata corp. LP, College Station, TX, USA).

Results.

A total of 174 patients with a mean age of 32 years were included, 10.9% (n=19) of the patients presented abdominal sepsis, of this group 94.7% (n=18) had a surgical reintervention (p < 0.0001). The overall mortality of the group was 5.1% (n=9) with no significant difference between patients with or without abdominal sepsis.

Discussion.

Among the different outcomes associated with laparotomy due to trauma, abdominal sepsis is described as one of the complications that generates significant morbidity, with an increase in hospital stay, the need for reoperation, an increase in care costs and a decrease in quality of life, factors in agreement with the findings of the present study.

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