Conservative treatment of penetrating abdominal injuries may avoid non-therapeutic laparotomy and decrease hospital utilization in selected patients. We evaluated the records of 87 patients (81 male) presenting to our tertiary university emergency department in the year 2000 with probable penetrating abdominal trauma who were initially managed with explorative laparotomy (EL) or strict observation (SO). Non-penetrating wounds were present in 31 and penetrating wounds in 56 patients, of whom 36 were treated surgically. In these surgically-treated patients, hypotension was present in 19, tachycardia in 16, and anemia in ten, while in the observation group, these numbers were five, five and one, respectively. Thoracic procedures were performed in 14 of 36 EL and 5 of 20 SO patients. Overall, 26 laparotoomies were performed in 56 patients. The most commonly injured organs were the liver and spleen (11 patients) and the laparotomy was negative in six patients. Mean length of stay in surgically-treated patients was eight days. Conservative observation of selected penetrating abdominal injury patients may decrease hospital length of stay, non-therapeutic laparotomy rate, and morbidity related to surgery.

Keywords: Stab wounds, penetration, laparotomy, nonoperative management