Annals of emergency medicine
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The controversies that have surrounded the prehospital management of trauma stem not only from a lack of appropriate evaluation data, but also from a lack of medical accountability and "street-wise," academic physician involvement within emergency medical services (EMS) systems. As a result, the approach to EMS trauma care has often been over-generalized and debated in terms of simplistic, unidimensional concepts, such as "scoop and run" versus "field stabilization," without any regard for the type and anatomic location of injury involved, the efficiency and skill of rescuers, the proximity and actual capabilities of definitive care resources, and the logistics of the prehospital setting. The failure to understand and delineate these variables has led to conflicting studies and has confused the analysis of potential therapeutic modalities and management strategies. ⋯ In all three systems, patients generally are categorized according to three major injury types (penetrating, blunt, and thermal) and then further subcategorized with regard to anatomical involvement, specifically those involving potential (or known) internal truncal injuries versus those with isolated head trauma or isolated extremity injury. For all three, high-flow O2 delivery and aggressive, advanced airway management (by endotracheal intubation whenever feasible) are keystones of management. In cases of potential or known internal truncal injury, the priority is also expeditious transport to facilities with definitive surgical care with the establishment of IV access and rapid fluid infusions en route.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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The transcutaneous oxygen (PtcO2) monitoring technique uses a Clark electrode applied noninvasively to the skin surface. To obtain PtcO2 values that respond rapidly to physiologic changes, the electrode is heated to 44 to 45 C. Since its introduction in 1972, the PtcO2 sensor has become standard for monitoring oxygenation of neonates in respiratory distress. ⋯ Comparison to an arterial blood gas can easily differentiate whether a low PtcO2 value might be due to hypoxia or to low cardiac output. Other noninvasive monitors (conjunctival oxygen, pulse oximeter, transcutaneous CO2, end-tidal CO2) also show promise. In the emergency department, PtcO2 monitoring is useful in assessing the presence and severity of shock and hypoxia and as a physiologic monitor for titrating resuscitation.
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Acute hemorrhage is a major cause of death in both civilian and military trauma. The suboptimal effect of the volume of standard crystalloids that can be infused during transport has resulted in a need for a more efficacious fluid for the prehospital management of both civilian and military trauma. ⋯ The hypertonic sodium chloride/dextran solution has the potential advantages of improving survival, producing a beneficial hemodynamic effect with smaller fluid volumes, reducing total fluid requirements during resuscitation, and being stored easily. This solution may prove valuable in the early resuscitation of the hypovolemic trauma patient and merits further clinical trials.
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The development of perfluorocarbon (PFC) solutions as clinically useful oxygen-carrying agents has been a slow process because PFC is immiscible in aqueous solutions, including blood. Therefore, it has been necessary to develop emulsions for IV infusions. One such emulsion (fluosol) has been the most extensively studied and has been clinically tested. ⋯ PFC solutions thus remain experimental. Their greatest future use may be not as a blood substitute for treatment of anemia, but rather as an agent to improve microcirculatory oxygen delivery for treatment of ischemic tissues (ie, in stroke, myocardial infarction, burns, ischemic extremities). Further development of PFC emulsions is ongoing.