BACKGROUND The deployed Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) in the British military field hospital in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, admits both adults and children. The purpose of this paper is to review the paediatric workload in the deployed ITU and to describe how the unit copes with the challenge of looking after critically injured and ill children. METHODS Retrospective review of patients <16 year...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Almost 50% of military trauma patients who need transfusions develop a coagulopathy. Immediately treating this coagulopathy improves the patient?s prognosis. Field military hospitals often lack laboratory devices needed to diagnose a clinically significant coagulopathy and have limited blood product resources such as plasma. Point-of-care (POC) devices for the measureme...

Background: Peripheral vascular injury associated with lower limb trauma is a well-known emergency. The experience for the management of popliteal artery trauma have mainly come from managing the traumas of military personnels during Iran-Iraq war. The present study compared the effects of two currently-used surgical techniques in the management of popliteal trauma, namley femoropopliteal bypas...

BACKGROUND The National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) report on trauma management, published in 2007, defined standards for United Kingdom (UK) hospitals dealing with trauma. This study compared the NCEPOD standards with the performance of a UK military field hospital in Afghanistan. SETTING UK military field hospital, Camp Bastion, Helmand Province, Afghanistan...

BACKGROUND The Joint Theater Trauma System (JTTS) was developed with the vision that every soldier, marine, sailor, and airman injured on the battlefield would have the optimal chance for survival and maximum potential for functional recovery. In this analysis, we hypothesized that injury and complication after injury surveillance information diffusion through the JTTS, via the dissemination of...

Trauma is a leading cause of death in both military and civilian populations worldwide. Although medical advances have improved the overall morbidity and mortality often associated with trauma, additional research and innovative advancements in therapeutic interventions are needed to optimize patient outcomes. Cell-based therapies present a novel opportunity to improve trauma and critical care ...