Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Cardiol. Jul 26, 2018; 10(7): 49-51
Published online Jul 26, 2018. doi: 10.4330/wjc.v10.i7.49
Preventing pediatric cardiothoracic trauma: Role of policy and legislation
Konstantinos S Mylonas, Pouya Hemmati, Diamantis I Tsilimigras, Pavlos Texakalidis, Konstantinos P Economopoulos
Konstantinos S Mylonas, Pediatric Cardiology Working Group, Society of Junior Doctors, Athens 15123, Greece
Pouya Hemmati, Department of Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55902, United States
Diamantis I Tsilimigras, School of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens 11527, Greece
Diamantis I Tsilimigras, Pavlos Texakalidis, Konstantinos P Economopoulos, Surgery Working Group, Society of Junior Doctors, Athens 15123, Greece
Pavlos Texakalidis, School of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54621, Greece
Konstantinos P Economopoulos, Department of Surgery, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, United States
Author contributions: Mylonas KS, Hemmati P, Tsilimigras DI, Texakalidis P and Economopoulos KP designed the study; Mylonas KS, Tsilimigras DI and Texakalidis P collected the data; Mylonas KS drafted the manuscript; Mylonas KS, Hemmati P, Tsilimigras DI, Texakalidis P and Economopoulos KP critically revised the manuscript; Economopoulos KP supervised this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Konstantinos S Mylonas, MD, Postdoctoral Fellow, Pediatric Cardiology Working Group, Society of Junior Doctors, Menalou 5, Athens 15123, Greece. ksmylonas@gmail.com
Telephone: +30-69-76948121
Received: May 12, 2018
Peer-review started: May 12, 2018
First decision: June 6, 2018
Revised: June 11, 2018
Accepted: June 27, 2018
Article in press: June 27, 2018
Published online: July 26, 2018
Abstract

Data from the last 50 years suggest that pediatric patients typically suffer cardiothoracic injuries following blunt traumatic force (70%) in the setting of either motor vehicle crashes (53.5%) or vehicle-pedestrian accidents (18.2%). Penetrating trauma accounts for 30% of pediatric cardiothoracic injuries, half of which are gunshot wounds. Graduated driver licensing programs, gun-control legislation, off-road vehicle regulation, initiatives such as “Prevent the Bleed”, as well as professional society recommendations are key in preventing pediatric cardiothoracic injuries.

Keywords: Pediatric trauma, Blunt cardiac trauma, Penetrating cardiac trauma, Injury, Children, Policy, Legislation

Core tip: Graduated driver licensing programs, gun-control legislation, off-road vehicle regulation, initiatives such as “Prevent the Bleed”, as well as professional society recommendations are key in preventing pediatric cardiothoracic injuries.