Injury
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In remote and mountainous areas, helicopter emergency medical systems (HEMS) are used to expedite evacuation and provide pre-hospital advanced trauma life support (ATLS) in major trauma victims. Aim of the study was to investigate feasibility of ATLS in HEMS mountain rescue missions and its influence on patient condition at hospital admission. ⋯ The frequent combination of prolonged pre-hospital times, with critical impairment of vital functions, supports the need for early ATLS in HEMS mountain rescue missions. Pre-hospital endotracheal intubation is possible with a high success and low complication rate also in a mountain rescue scenario. Pre-hospital volume resuscitation is restrictive and hypotension is reversed at hospital admission in only one third of patients. Prolonged pre-hospital hypotension remains an unresolved problem in half of all brain trauma patients and indicates the difficulties to increase blood pressure to a desired level in a mountain rescue scenario. Despite technical considerations, on-site ATLS is feasible for an experienced emergency physician in the majority of rope rescue operations.
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Trauma patients are at increased risk for developing venous thromboembolic (VTE) disease. The EAST (Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma) practice management guidelines identified risk factors for VTE, as well as indications for prophylactic inferior vena cava filters (IVCF). In a 2009 study, our institution found a 26% retrieval rate for IVCF. Lack of retrieval was most consistently due to lack of follow-up. Our study is a follow-up analysis for retrieval rate of IVCF, since the formation of a geriatric trauma service. We anticipated that geriatric trauma patients would have a lower rate of IVCF retrieval compared to the general trauma patient. ⋯ IVCF plays a critical role in the management of trauma patients with VTE, particularly the geriatric population. Since our 2009 study, we have improved nearly ten percentage points (26% to 34%); however, we exposed an age bias with retrieval rate being lower in patients >/=65 compared to those <65 (9% vs. 47%).
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Observational Study
End-tidal CO2 on admission is associated with hemorrhagic shock and predicts the need for massive transfusion as defined by the critical administration threshold: A pilot study.
Critical administration threshold (≥3 units of packed red blood cells/h or CAT+) has been proposed as a new definition for massive transfusion (MT) that includes volume and rate of blood transfusion. CAT+ has been shown to eliminate survivor bias and be a better predictor of mortality than the traditional MT (>10 units/24h). End-tidal CO2 (ET CO2) negatively correlates with lactate and is an early predictor of shock in trauma patients. We conducted a pilot study to test the hypothesis that low ET CO2 on admission predicts CAT+. ⋯ This pilot study demonstrated that low ET CO2 had strong association with standard indicators for shock and was predictive of patients meeting CAT+ criteria in the first 6h after admission. Further study to verify these results and to elucidate CAT criteria's association with mortality will require a larger sample size.
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The French army has been deployed in Mali since January 2013 with the Serval Operation and since July 2014 in the Sahel-Saharan Strip (SSS) with the Barkhane Operation where the distances (up to 1100km) can be very long. French Military Medical Service deploys an inclusive chain from the point of injury (POI) to hospital in France. A patient evacuation coordination cell (PECC) has been deployed since February 2013 to organise forward medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) in the area between the POI and three forward surgical units. The purpose of this work was to study the medical evacuation length and duration between the call for Medevac location accidents and forward surgical units (role 2) throughout the five million square kilometers French joint operation area. ⋯ Patient evacuation in such a large area is a logistic and human challenge. Despite this, Bravo and Charlie patients were evacuated in NATO recommended time frame. However, due to distance, Alpha patients time frame was longer than this recommended by NATO organisation. That's where French doctrine with forward medical teams embedded in the platoons is relevant to mitigate this distance and time frame challenge.
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The role of emergency physicians in the pre-hospital management of severely injured patients remains controversial. In Germany and Austria, an emergency physician is present at the scene of an emergency situation or is called to such a scene in order to provide pre-hospital care to severely injured patients in approximately 95% of all cases. By contrast, in the United States and the United Kingdom, paramedics, i.e. non-physician teams, usually provide care to an injured person both at the scene of an incident and en route to an appropriate hospital. We investigated whether physician or non-physician care offers more benefits and what type of on-site care improves outcome. ⋯ This retrospective analysis does not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn about the optimal model of pre-hospital care. It shows, however, that there was no significant difference in mortality although patients who were attended by non-physician teams received fewer pre-hospital interventions with similar scene times.