The American surgeon
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The American surgeon · Feb 2011
Hemostatic dressings reduce tourniquet time while maintaining hemorrhage control.
Tourniquet application has become first-line treatment for extremity hemorrhage on the battlefield and has seen increased use in the civilian arena. We hypothesized that an effective windlass tourniquet could be removed after application of a hemostatic dressing in a swine model of peripheral vascular injury. A tourniquet was placed proximally in 50 forelimb-injured swine after 30 seconds of hemorrhage with cessation of hemorrhage in all cases. ⋯ ActCel maintained hemostasis in nine (90%) subjects, whereas HemCon was successful in all instances (100%). All four hemostatic dressings were superior to gauze in maintaining hemostasis after removal of an effective tourniquet. Use of hemostatic dressings in conjunction with a tourniquet may reduce tourniquet times and improve outcomes in peripheral vascular injury and warrants further study.
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The American surgeon · Feb 2011
Damage control resuscitation: from emergency department to the operating room.
Damage control surgery emphasizes limited operations with control of bleeding and contamination. Traditional management centered upon correction of acidosis and hypotension with crystalloids. Damage control resuscitation (DCR) is permissive hypotension and early hemostatic resuscitation combined identified and corrects coagulopathy with fresh-frozen plasma (FFP), restricting use of crystalloids. ⋯ NonDCR group had 13.2 days longer hospital length of stay. Damage control resuscitation, beginning in the ED, used more packed red blood cells and FFP minimizing crystalloids. DCR was associated with a survival advantage and shorter length of stay in patients with severe hemorrhage.
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The American surgeon · Feb 2011
Prospective identification of patients at risk for massive transfusion: an imprecise endeavor.
Most retrospective studies evaluating fresh-frozen plasma:packed red blood cell ratios in trauma patients requiring massive transfusion (MT) are limited by survival bias. As prospective resource-intensive studies are being designed to better evaluate resuscitation strategies, it is imperative that patients with a high likelihood of MT are identified early. The objective of this study was to develop a predictive model for MT in civilian trauma patients. ⋯ All combinations or clinical measures alone yielded lower predictive probability. Using these emergency department clinical measures, a predictive model to successfully identify civilian trauma patients at risk for MT was not able to be constructed. Given prospective identification of patients at risk for MT remains an imprecise undertaking, appropriate resources to support these efforts will need to be allocated for the completion of these studies.
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The American surgeon · Jan 2011
Comparative StudyCivilian and military trauma: does civilian training prepare surgeons for the battlefield?
The management of trauma patients continues to be a major focus of resident training. The purpose of this review is to compare the mechanism and distribution of injuries in civilian and military trauma and to ascertain whether we are optimally preparing surgeons for the injuries seen on the battlefield. We performed a retrospective 5-year review of all trauma admissions to our urban trauma center (TC). ⋯ Truncal injuries accounted for just 14 per cent of the injuries seen and extremity injuries accounted for, a significant, 56 per cent of all the injuries observed. The civilian experience with gunshot wounds often focuses on truncal trauma, yet the military data show a need for knowledge of devastating injuries to the extremity. This divergent experience may be even more salient in the future as the battlefield is brought closer to home through domestic terrorism and the line is blurred between military and civilian trauma.
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Left pancreatic traumas (LPTs) are rare but serious lesions occurring in 1 to 6 per cent of abdominal trauma patients and mainly resulting from blunt traumas. LPT severity is primarily dependent on the associated injuries and secondarily related to main pancreatic duct injury responsible for complications: acute pancreatitis, pseudocysts, pancreatic fistulas, or abscesses. The guidelines for blunt LPT management can be presented as follows. ⋯ However, in such cases, spleen-preserving distal pancreatectomy remains the treatment of choice. Pancreatic ductal lesions resulting from LPT have to be diagnosed early to avoid late complications. Distal pancreatectomy remains the treatment of choice in case of severe pancreatic ductal lesions because the role of ERCP stenting and endoscopic techniques needs further evaluation.