Triage of war-injured troops in the Iran-Iraq War

This study compared the triage of Iran-Iraq war-injured troops within the first two years of the war with that after the first two years. This was a retrospective study, which compared the triage of the admissions for abdominal injuries during the first two years of the Iran-Iraq War with that in the next 6 years. Out of nearly 50,000 cases, 1,176 ones were randomly selected and their triage information was recorded and analyzed. About 12.5% of patients were operated on within less than 8 hours during the first two years. From 1982 towards the end of the conflict (1988), the patients were treated within progressively shorter periods of sustaining injury; 68.8% were operated on within less than 4 hours of injury. The mean delay between injury and treatment in the first two years of war was 12 hours while it was 5 hours between 1982 and 1988. The difference was significant (P<0.05) but the mortality rate was not significantly different. Patient triage was conducted differently at various stages of conflict. Better patient triage after 1982, may have been due to improved care and more specialized triage of injured troops.