<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>Between January 1987 and September 1991, 68 severely traumatized patients underwent emergency
laparotomy because of blunt abdominal trauma. Intraoperatively, 54.4% of the patients had a major
injury to one organ, 23.5% had injuries to two organs, 16.2% had injuries to three organs and 5.9% to
four or more organs. Additionally, in 11.8% of these cases (<italic>n</italic> = 8) a major vascular injury (portal vein <italic>n</italic> = 5, vena cava <italic>n</italic> = 2, mesenteric root <italic>n</italic> = 1) was found. Injuries to the portal vein were always associated with complete rupture of the pancreas, requiring distal pancreatic resection in four cases and a duodenum preserving resection of the head of the pancreas in one. In two of these patients the portal vein had to be reconstructed with a Goretex prosthetic graft. Mortality was 14.7% for the whole group (<italic>n</italic> = 68) and 0% for patients with additional portal venous injuries.</p>
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HPB Surg. 1993; 6(3):163-168