Penetrating trauma is an open wound injury that occurs when an object pierces the skin and enters a tissue of the body, creating a deep but relatively narrow entry wound. In contrast, a blunt or non-penetrating trauma may have some deep damage, but the overlying skin is not necessarily broken and the wound is still closed to the outside environment. The penetrating object may remain in the tissues, come back out the path it entered, or pass through the full thickness of the tissues and exit from another area.
A penetrating injury in which an object enters the body or a structure and passes all the way through an exit wound is called a perforating trauma, while the term penetrating trauma implies that the object does not perforate wholly through. In gunshot wounds, perforating trauma is associated with an entrance wound and an often larger exit wound.
