BACKGROUND: Recent years have seen an increase in reported violent crime involving knives. Valid case numbers of severe stabbing injuries have not been available to date, and the poor state of the evidence hinders consideration of the matter not only on the medical level, but on the political level as well. In this study, we provide the first data on the evolution of case numbers of severe injury from knife crime in Germany. METHODS: AUC) were used for an analysis of geographic distribution. Patients were included if they sustained a documented severe stab injury that was suspected to be due to a violent crime in the period January 2013 to December 2024. The number of hospitals contributing data remained stable over the study period, with only small fluctuations. RESULTS: 291 752 cases of severe injury were registered, of which 3664 (1.28%) involved stabbing in a suspected violent crime. The lowest number of such cases (212) was in 2013, and the highest (382) in 2023; there were 336 cases in 2024. The mean age of the patients was 34.2 ± 14.3 years; 85.6% were male. Emergency surgery was performed in 72% of cases. CONCLUSION: The absolute incidence of severe stab injuries of suspected criminal origin (212 to 382 cases per year) is low but on the rise, as is the percentage of such injuries among all severe injuries. Persons who died before reaching a hospital were not included in the data.
Störmann et al. (2026) studied this question.