Advanced Diagnostics, Management, and Rare Unusual Clinical Consequences of Blunt or Penetrating Abdominal, Pelvic, Thoracic, and Vascular Injuries

Dear Colleagues,

Severe blunt and penetrating trauma, acute thoracoabdominal pathologies, and traumatic vascular disruptions present high-stakes clinical challenges requiring rapid diagnostic tools, precise prognosis, and decisive interventions. This Special Issue focuses on the entire spectrum of blunt or penetrating abdominal, pelvic, thoracic, and vascular injuries, from early predictive scoring and advanced imaging to operative management of both common and highly unusual clinical presentations.

Modern emergency workflows and damage control strategies must rapidly adapt to these critical, time-sensitive injuries to prevent complications, avoid diagnostic pitfalls, and optimize patient survival rates. In particular, advanced radiological evaluations, such as multi-detector CT angiography, play a pivotal role in identifying occult arterial bleedings, retroperitoneal hematomas, and complex organ lacerations. Furthermore, the management of major macrovascular trauma—including blunt thoracic aortic injury (BTAI)—has been revolutionized by emergency endovascular strategies like Thoracic Endovascular Aortic Repair (TEVAR) and resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA).

Beyond immediate operative care, this Special Issue aims to address the critical post-operative management of trunk trauma, including the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of specific regional complications. We strongly encourage contributions focusing on acute conditions such as abdominal compartment syndrome, secondary hemorrhage, delayed visceral perforation, and persistent air leaks following thoracic trauma, as well as multi-disciplinary protocols optimizing patient stabilization.

Building directly upon our group’s extensive peer-reviewed findings, this Special Issue emphasizes the diagnostic and therapeutic complexities of acute visceral injuries, congenital or acquired structural anomalies (such as wandering accessory spleens and post-splenectomy splenosis), and severe hepato-splenic trauma.

We welcome high-quality original research articles and systematic reviews evaluating early prognostic predictors, emergency scoring systems (e.g., GCS, Shock Index) versus injury severity grading systems (AAST, WSES), specific injury mechanisms, and innovative surgical techniques. By bridging emergency surgery and interventional radiology, this Special Issue aims to provide clinicians and researchers worldwide with actionable insights to improve outcomes in severely injured patients.

Dr. Karol Kłosiński
Prof. Dr. Zbigniew Pasieka
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• blunt trauma
• penetrating trauma
• abdominal injuries
• thoracic injuries
• pelvic fractures
• arterial and vascular trauma
• blunt aortic injury (BTAI)
• thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR)
• visceral macrovascular trauma
• emergency surgery
• damage control resuscitation