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Pediatric trauma is a significant public health problem in resource-constrained settings; however, the epidemiology of injuries is poorly defined in Rwanda. This study describes the characteristics of pediatric trauma patients transported to the emergency department (ED) of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali by emergency medical services in Kigali, Rwanda.This cohort study was conducted at the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali from December 2012 to February 2015. Patients 15 years or younger brought by emergency medical services for injuries to the ED were included. Prehospital and hospital-based data on demographics, injury characteristics, treatments, and outcomes were gathered.Data from 119 prehospital patients were accrued, with corresponding hospital data for 64 cases. The median age was 9.5 years, with most patients being male (67.2%). Injured children were most frequently brought from a street setting (69.6%). Road traffic injuries accounted for 69.4% of all mechanisms, with more than two thirds due to pedestrians being struck. Extremity trauma was the most common region of injury (53.1%), followed by craniofacial (46.8%). The most frequent ED interventions were analgesia (66.1%) and intravenous fluids (43.6%). Half of the 16 obtained head computed tomography scans demonstrated acute pathology. Twenty-eight patients (51.9%) were admitted, with 57.1% requiring surgery and having a median in-hospital care duration of 9 days (range, 1-122 days).In this cohort of Rwandan pediatric trauma patients, injuries to the extremities and craniofacial regions were most common. Theses traumatic patterns were predominantly due to road traffic injury, suggesting that interventions addressing the prevention of this mechanism, and treatment of the associated injury patterns, may be beneficial in the Rwandan setting.

and scene patients, respectively. There was no statistically significant clinical difference between groups. Survival was 95.8% and 98.4% for transferred and scene patients, respectively. The adjusted survival odds ratio was 0.60 (95% CI 0.46 to 0.79) for transferred vs scene patients, after controlling for age, sex, mechanism of injury, mode of transportation, hours to presentation, and initial AVPU.

INTRODUCTION: Community-based surveillance methods to monitor epidemiological progress in surgery have not yet been employed for surgical capacity building. The goals of this study are twofold: to create a validated survey tool to easily measure surgical disease; and to accurately define the surgical epidemiology of a catchment population for a Partners In Health-supported district hospital in northern Rwanda.

INTRODUCTION: Inguinal hernia repair (IHR) is frequently performed during humanitarian surgical missions due to the high prevalence of hernia in low income countries (LIC). It is unclear whether the allocation of resources aimed at IHR is justified as the burden of these hernias is unknown. We hypothesized that inguinal hernias result in significant reduction in activity and productivity in LIC.