[Injury patterns in motorcycle accident victims].

An analysis of the injury patterns presented by inpatients of a government teaching hospital, known as one of the emergency centers of S. Paulo city, Brazil, is given the majority of victims are young, male adults and most of them were later discharged from the hospital. In relation to the injuries the majority of the patients were classified as being of minor injury grade (ISS between 1 and 9) and the most frequent injuries were extremity and pelvic fractures, surface trauma, traumatic brain injury and extremity and pelvic dislocations. Besides extremity and pelvic fractures, the victims who died showed abdominal organ injury and traumatic brain injury and the ISS was over 20. Head injury patients who had a high Glasgow Coma Scale score had a low ISS and vice-versa.