Articles: trauma.
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J Trauma Manag Outcomes · Jan 2012
Association of changes in the use of board-certified critical care intensivists with mortality outcomes for trauma patients at a well-established level I urban trauma center.
An intensivist-directed Intensive Care Unit is a closed-model unit in which a physician formally trained in critical care plays a leadership role in patient management. In the last decade, there has been a move toward closed Intensive Care Units. The purpose of this evaluation was to assess the association of changes in the use of intensivists to a closed-model with mortality outcomes in injured patients seen in a long-established urban Level I Trauma Center. ⋯ In our setting, a change to a closed Intensive Care Unit model was associated with improved mortality outcomes in patients with less severe injuries and patients age 65+ years.
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Trauma, often accompanied by hemorrhage, is a leading cause of death worldwide, often leading to inflammation-related late complications that include sepsis and multiple organ failure. These secondary complications are a manifestation of the complexity of biological responses elicited by trauma/hemorrhage, responses that span most, if not all, cell types, tissues, and organ systems. This daunting complexity at the patient level is manifest by the near total dearth of available therapeutics, and we suggest that this dire condition is due in large part to the lack of a rational, systems-oriented framework for drug development, clinical trial design, in-hospital diagnostics, and post-hospital care. ⋯ We propose a rational framework for transitioning through the currently fragmented process from identification of biological networks that are potential therapeutic targets, through clinical trial design, to personalized diagnosis and care. Insights derived from systems and computational biology in trauma and sepsis include the centrality of Damage-Associated Molecular Pattern molecules as drivers of both beneficial and detrimental inflammation, along with a novel view of multiple organ dysfunction as a cascade of containment failures with distinct implications for therapy. Finally, we suggest how these insights might be best implemented to drive transformational change in the fields of trauma and sepsis.
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NeuroImage. Clinical · Jan 2012
ReviewNeuroimaging of structural pathology and connectomics in traumatic brain injury: Toward personalized outcome prediction.
Recent contributions to the body of knowledge on traumatic brain injury (TBI) favor the view that multimodal neuroimaging using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI and fMRI, respectively) as well as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has excellent potential to identify novel biomarkers and predictors of TBI outcome. This is particularly the case when such methods are appropriately combined with volumetric/morphometric analysis of brain structures and with the exploration of TBI-related changes in brain network properties at the level of the connectome. ⋯ The themes being explored cover notable trends in this area of research, including (1) the role of advanced MRI processing methods in the analysis of structural pathology, (2) the use of brain connectomics and network analysis to identify outcome biomarkers, and (3) the application of multivariate statistics to predict outcome using neuroimaging metrics. The goal of the review is to draw the community's attention to these recent advances on TBI outcome prediction methods and to encourage the development of new methodologies whereby structural neuroimaging can be used to identify biomarkers of TBI outcome.
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The aim of this study was to evaluate by meta-analysis the current level of evidence in order to establish the impact of a platelet transfusion on survival in patients on pre-injury antiplatelet agents who sustain an intracranial haemorrhage (either spontaneous or traumatic). ⋯ The results of this meta-analysis has shown, based upon six small studies, that there was no clear benefit in terms of survival in the administration of a platelet transfusion to patients with antiplatelet-associated ICH. Further work is required in order to establish any potential benefit in the administration of a platelet transfusion in patients with spontaneous or traumatic intracranial haemorrhage who were on pre-injury antiplatelet agents.
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The development of acute coagulopathy of trauma (ACoT) is associated with a significant increase in mortality. However, the contributory mechanisms behind ACoT have yet to be clearly defined. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the influence of multiple variables, including base deficit and injury severity, on development of ACoT within a subset of critically ill trauma patients. ⋯ The current study revealed that ACoT is independently associated with both shock (base deficit) and tissue injury. Additionally, tissue injury is a significant contributor to the development of early ACoT regardless of blunt or penetrating mechanism.