Abstract: The objective was to summarize the experience in the diagnosis and treatment of 85 cases of thoracic injury combined with head injury in order to improve the standard of diagnosis and treatment. We retrospectively reviewed 85 cases of thoracic injury combined with head injury. The main cause of thoracic injury combined with head injury was traffic accident(68 cases,80%). Operative treatments were employed in 14 cases. Eighteen cases(21.2%)died, of which 11 cases(61.1%)died of head injury, 3 cases(16.7%)of shock due to acute blood loss, 3 cases(16.7%)of ARDS, 1 case(5.5%)of MSOF. The results suggest that it's very important to realize the seriousness of head injury. The treatment should be performed with diagnosis at the same time. The injury history and physical examination are helpful to the diagnosis of head injury by injury history and physical examination. The dangerous and serious injury should take the priority of the treatment. It should be carefully dealt for the paradorical management between shock and intracranial hypertension. Attention should also be paid to the increase of the incidence and the mortality of ARDS in the thoracic injury combined with head injury.

Key words: thoracic injury, head injury, diagnosis and treatment, cause of death