Massive bleeding in polytrauma: how can we make progress?

Massive bleeding in polytrauma: how can we make progress?

Trauma is a major cause of death worldwide, with some 30% of deaths associated with hemorrhage. Rapid control of bleeding in such patients is thus an essential aspect of trauma care. Recombinant human factor VIIa is sometimes used off-label in massively bleeding patients and has been demonstrated in two randomized trials to significantly reduce the need for blood transfusions. Whether this tran...

Commentary: how can we make diagnosis safer?.

Diagnostic errors are common and are a leading cause of patient dissatisfaction and malpractice suits. Because of its traditional heavy reliance on memory and lack of standardization, the diagnostic process is particularly error prone. A study by Zwaan and colleagues on diagnostic failures in treating dyspneic patients makes several important contributions: examining the process behind the diag...

How can we make them work ?

How fast can we make interpreted Python?

Python is a popular dynamic language with a large part of its appeal coming from powerful libraries and extension modules. These augment the language and make it a productive environment for a wide variety of tasks, ranging from web development (Django) to numerical analysis (NumPy). Unfortunately, Python’s performance is quite poor when compared to modern implementations of languages such as L...

All bleeding stops: how we can help...

Rossaint and colleagues provide the critical care community with a comprehensive review of evidence-based data in an updated European guideline on management of bleeding following major trauma. In addition to reevaluating and grading recommendations carried forward from their previous work, they present new recommendations in areas such as coagulation support and monitoring, tourniquet usage, c...