The Preventive Effect of Belongings in Penetrating Trauma.

We read with great interest the article of Byun, et al.1 entitled "Epidemiology of trauma patients and analysis of 268 mortality cases: trends of a single center in Korea". The authors mentioned the blunt traumas in general. We would like to add one more information about penetrating trauma.

Bullets damage the tissue with a sudden mechanical force to a localized area and with shock waves, resulting in cavitation.2 The tissue damage is generally related with the velocity of the projectile. It is shown that a high velocity bullet, striking a metalic material on the body before entering a tissue, causes increased injuries.34 In the light of this knowledge, objects such as cell phones, belt buckles, bags or even wallets of the patient may prevent further injuries, especially if the patient is shot with a low (stabbing) or medium (handgun) velocity weapon. However, with high velocity injuries-shot by rifles and military weapons, the fragmented metal objects may cause increased tissue damage. Because most of penetrating traumas in cities are low and medium velocity injuries, we think that practitioners in emergency service should be aware of this preventive entity of the belongings while evaluating patients.

We thank the authors for their recommendation on the trauma patients in their article.