Supplemental Table 2: Demographics, injury characteristics, in-hospital outcome, and complications in patients with multiple rib fractures, treated operatively (SSRF) or nonoperatively Overall
(n=248)
SSRF (n=34)
Nonoperative (n=214)
p
Patient characteristics
Age (years) 54 (43-64) 59 (49-70) 54 (42-63) 0.035
Sex (male) 187 (75.4%) 24 (70.6%) 163 (76.2%) 0.521
Smoking at age of trauma 49 (19.8%) 4 (11.8%) 45 (21.0%) 0.253 Injury characteristics
Number of ribs fractured 6 (4-8) 9 (7-11) 5 (4-7) <0.001
Bilateral rib fractures 72 (29.0%) 11 (32.4%) 61 (28.5%) 0.686 Additional thoracic injury
Flail chest 47 (19.0%) 20 (58.8%) 27 (12.6%) <0.001
Pneumothorax 134 (54.0%) 28 (82.4%) 106 (49.5%) <0.001
Hemothorax 102 (41.1%) 27 (79.4%) 75 (35.0%) <0.001
Pulmonary contusion 141 (57.1%) 25 (75.8%) 116 (54.2%) 0.023 Sternal fracture 32 (13.0%) 6 (18.2%) 26 (12.1%) 0.400 Clavicular fracture 66 (26.6%) 9 (26.5%) 57 (26.6%) 1.000 Scapular fracture 48 (19.4%) 10 (30.3%) 28 (17.8%) 0.100 Thoracic vertebral fracture 66 (26.7%) 11 (33.3%) 55 (25.7%) 0.399
ISS 22 (15-29) 23 (17-29) 20 (14-29) 0.115
AIS Head ≥3 73 (29.4%) 8 (23.5%) 65 (30.4%) 0.544
Duration of follow-up (months) 38 (19-62) 23 (15-38) 42 (21-64) 0.001 In-hospital outcome
Mechanical ventilation 65 (26.2%) 17 (50.0%) 48 (22.4%) 0.001
ICU admission 99 (39.9%) 24 (70.6%) 75 (25.0%) <0.001
ICLOS (days) 7 (3-11) 8 (4-13) 6 (3-11) 0.249
HLOS (days) 11 (7-21) 20 (13-26) 10 (6-19) <0.001
Complications
Thoracic complications 42 (16.9%) 9 (26.5%) 33 (15.4%) 0.137
Non-SSRF related 39 (15.7%) 6 (17.6%) 33 (15.4%) 0.800
Pneumonia 24 (9.7%) 4 (11.8%) 20 (9.3%) 0.753
Pleural empyema 7 (2.8%) 1 (2.9%) 6 (2.8%) 1.000
Retained hemothorax 4 (1.6%) 0 (0.0%) 4 (1.9%) 1.000
Pleural effusion 5 (2.0%) 0 (0.0%) 5 (2.3%) 1.000
Nonunion 1 (0.4%) 1 (2.9%) 0 (0.0%) 0.137
Persistent pain 1 (0.4%) 0 (0.0%) 1 (0.5%) 1.000
Surgical re-interventions 26 (10.5%) 7 (20.6%) 19 (8.9%) 0.063
Non-SSRF related 23 (9.3%) 4 (11.8%) 19 (8.9%) 0.533
Chest tube drainage 14 (5.6%) 1 (2.9%) 13 (6.1%) 0.700
AIS, abbreviated injury scale; HLOS, hospital length of stay; ICU, Intensive Care Unit; ICU LOS, Intensive Care Unit length of stay; ISS, injury severity score, SSRF, surgical stabilization of rib fractures; VATS, video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery.
Data are shown as median (P25-P75) or as n (%); bold p-values are considered statistically significant. There were no missing data.
