Introduction:

Trauma implies a comprehensive form of management that requires a significant investment in two aspects: economic and educative. Polytraumatized patients are difficult to assess, diagnose and treat, as they present a high vital risk, therefore fast, comprehensive and multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment are required.

Objective:

To determine how the indication of tomographic studies in polytraumatized patients is established.

Materials and methods:

A descriptive, cross-sectional and prospective research was carried out. The universe consisted of 43 patients with diagnosis of polytrauma, who entered the Emergency Service of the Clinical Surgical University Hospital Comandante Faustino Perez Hernandez, and who were indicated tomographic studies or not, to define behavior.

Results:

The age group between 31 and 60 years predominated, and the sex of the people treated with complex trauma was represented in 83.7% by male patients. Trauma combination predominated in the studied universe, with an occurrence of 55.8%, and multiple tomographies predominated, for 60.4%.

Conclusions:

The indication of multiple tomographies in polytraumatized patients was not justified in the highest percentage of cases. The non-collection of the kinematics of the trauma, nor the application of the prognosis scales that are protocoled, led to mistakes in the indication of complementary imaging and in the performance. An unnecessary use of the equipment was detected, an element that shortens its useful life and causes biological damage to the patient.

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