Editor—The Fluids in Resuscitation of Severe Trauma (FIRST) randomized trial conducted by James and colleagues compared hydroxyethyl starch (HES) 130/0.4 with 0.9% saline in the resuscitation of 115 patients with severe blunt or penetrating trauma at a single centre in South Africa. In blunt trauma, which accounts for 86–97% of all traumatic injuries in Europe, 3 no differences were found betwe...

OBJECTIVES Recent data from Iraq supporting early aggressive use of fresh frozen plasma (FFP) in a 1:1 ratio to packed red blood cells (PRBCs) has led many civilian trauma centers to adopt this resource intensive strategy. METHODS Prospective data were collected on 806 consecutive trauma patients admitted to the intensive care unit over 2 years. Patients were stratified by PRBC:FFP transfusio...

Relatively junior doctors or allied health workers, with little or no training in ophthalmology, are often tasked with the recognition and initial management of eye trauma. In these situations, the lack of clear instructions and guidance to support decision making has been a key challenge, which has been compounded by the inconsistent terminologies used to describe eye injuries. In order to sta...

BACKGROUND Recent civilian studies have documented a relationship between increased mortality and the presence of an early coagulopathy of trauma diagnosed in the emergency department (ED). We hypothesized that acute coagulopathy (international normalized ratio >/=1.5) in combat casualties was associated with increased injury severity and mortality as is seen in civilian trauma patients. METH...

Hemorrhagic shock is a leading cause of death in trauma patients. Surgical control of bleeding and fluid resuscitation with both crystalloid and blood products remain the mainstay of therapy for injured patients with bleeding. However, there has been a recent re-evaluation of transfusion practice. Both the fear of transmissible disease and the costs of transfusing blood products have led to inc...

objective: to determine the predictive and diagnostic value of thorax trauma severity score (ttss) in a population of thoracic trauma patients admitted to a secondary level trauma center. methods : a retrospective analysis of patients admitted over a period of two years with idc-9 codes related to thoracic trauma was undertaken. the association of ttss with complications and mortality was evalu...

In all, 403 patients who had eLRP (163) or open RRP (240) were recruited; patients in both groups had similar preoperative staging. In addition to peri-operative variables (operative duration, complications, blood loss, transfusion rate, hospitalization, catheterization), oncological data (Gleason score, pathological stage, positive margins) were also compared. The extent of the systemic respon...

BACKGROUND This study reports a 10-year retrospective analysis of multiple trauma complicated by pulmonary contusion. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the risk factors for mortality due to trauma in patients with pulmonary contusion, the impact of various treatment options for prognosis, and the risk factors for concurrent Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). METHODS We retros...