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Definition
By Mayo Clinic staff
A ruptured spleen describes an emergency situation in which your spleen develops a break in its surface. Your spleen, located just under your rib cage on your left side, helps your body fight infection and filter old blood cells from your bloodstream.
A ruptured spleen is a serious condition that can occur when your spleen experiences a trauma. With enough force, a blow to your abdomen — during a sporting mishap, a fistfight or a car crash, for example — might lead to a ruptured spleen. Without emergency treatment, a ruptured spleen can cause life-threatening internal bleeding.
Though some ruptured spleens require emergency surgery, others with ruptured spleens can be treated with several days of hospital care.
- Shurin SB. The spleen and its disorders. In: Hoffman R, et al. Hematology: Basic Principles and Practice. 5th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Churchill Livingstone; 2009. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=aboutPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-0-443-06715-0..X5001-8--TOP&isbn=978-0-443-06715-0&uniq=210978719. Accessed Oct. 13, 2010.
- Landaw SA, et al. Approach to the adult patient with splenomegaly and other splenic disorders. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Oct. 13, 2010.
- Isenhour J, et al. General approach to blunt abdominal trauma in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Oct. 13, 2010.
- Clinical policy: Critical issues in the evaluation of adult patients presenting to the emergency department with acute blunt abdominal trauma. Irving, Texas: American College of Emergency Physicians. http://www.acep.org/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx?id=8808. Accessed Oct. 13, 2010.
- Practice management guidelines for the nonoperative management of blunt injury to the liver and spleen. Chicago, Ill.: Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma. http://www.east.org/tpg/livspleen.pdf. Accessed Oct. 13, 2010.
- Patient information for laparoscopic spleen removal (splenectomy) from SAGES. Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons. http://www.sages.org/sagespublication.php?doc=PI12. Accessed Oct. 13, 2010.
- Schooley RT. Epstein-Barr virus infection. In: Goldman L, et al. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/201609212-3/0/1492/0.html. Accessed Oct. 18, 2010.
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