Abstract

Objectives: On February 6, 2023, a devastating earthquake struck the southeastern part of Türkiye that affected eleven major cities. Thousands of people lost their lives, and many were buried under collapsed buildings. The aim of this study is to examine the demographic characteristics, clinical results, laboratory findings and injuries of the victims who applied to the emergency internal medicine service after the earthquake.

Materials and Methods: In this study, medical records of 60 patients with crush syndrome who applied to Ankara Bilkent City Hospital Emergency Department of Internal Medicine after the earthquake were evaluated retrospectively through the system.

Results: 56.67% of the patients were male, the mean age was 37.35, the mean duration of stay under the rubble was 28.39 hours, and 40 (66.67%) patients had extremity trauma. Twenty-two patients (36.67%) had fasciotomy and 15 (25%) had amputation. Various complications developed in patients; 36 acute kidney injury (AKI) (60%) and 15 (25%) wound infections were detected. Hemodialysis was applied to 32 patients (53.33%) due to AKI. AKI was detected in 17 of the patients who underwent fasciotomy, and wound infection was observed in 9 of them. Wound infection was detected in 13 of the patients with AKI. Mortality developed in 3 patients. In the comparison between patients with and without fasciotomy, it was found that there was a significant difference in terms of length of hospitalization, number of transfusions, AKI, wound infection, hemodialysis, myoglobin on admission value. In patients with acute renal failure; wound infection, hemodialysis, transfusion rates, myoglobin value >1000 (μg/L) at admission and urea at admission, creatinine at admission, creatine kinase rate at admission were higher.

Conclusion: Rapid determination of demographic characteristics, laboratory findings and clinical results of earthquake patients are critical for the development of future disaster preparedness, response and recovery policies.