CT of Major Vascular Injury in Blunt Abdominopelvic Trauma

Blunt abdominopelvic trauma remains one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality nationwide. Delays in diagnosis can be catastrophic, underscoring the crucial importance of prompt injury detection. Identification of vascular injuries in the setting of blunt abdominal trauma can pose a diagnostic challenge, as detection is reliant on appropriate multidetector computed tomography (CT) scanning protocols and familiarity with the various imaging presentations of vessel injury. The advent of multidetector CT and fine-tuning of department protocols has led to fast, accurate, and efficient diagnosis of the broad spectrum of major vascular injuries that can result from blunt abdominopelvic trauma. CT allows timely diagnosis, differentiation between various types of major vascular injury, identification of associated findings, and specific localization of the source of bleeding. Accurate and early diagnosis of major abdominopelvic vascular injuries is fundamental to initiation of appropriate treatment strategies and improvement of clinical outcomes in this patient population. (C) RSNA, 2016