OBJECTIVE To assess the impact of major trauma on individual and population health. METHODS Data from a regional trauma registry were used, including all trauma fatalities and nonfatal severely injured patients (injury severity score >15) in 1999 and 2000. The impact of fatalities was expressed in terms of years of life lost (YLL). The impact of severe injury on survivors was expressed in ter...

OBJECTIVE This study was conducted to associate tourniquet use and survival in casualty care over a decade of war in order to provide evidence to emergency medical personnel for the implementation and efficacy of tourniquet use in a large trauma system. METHODS This survey is a retrospective review of data extracted from a trauma registry. The decade (2001-2010) outcome trend analysis of tour...

The grading of injury severity has become a crucial issue in health care. In developed countries, multiple different scoring systems serve various purposes. Some of them were developed to grade patients on scene, some on admission and some during the hospital course. In addition, many scores are in use to monitor complications, such as ARDS, MODS or MOF. It is important to consider reasons for ...

OBJECTIVE To describe the burden of road transport-related serious injury in Victoria, Australia, over a 10-year period, after the introduction of an integrated trauma system. BACKGROUND Road traffic injury is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Efforts to improve care of the injured are important for reducing burden, but the impact of trauma care systems on burden and cost of ...

BACKGROUND Elderly trauma patients have a higher incidence of medical comorbidities when compared with their younger cohorts. Currently, the minimally accepted criteria established by the Committee on Trauma for the highest level of trauma activation (Level I) does not include age as a factor. Should patients older than 60 years with multiple injuries and/or a significant mechanism of injury be...

Attempts have been made to improve the Injury Severity Score (ISS) system of Baker et al. (1974) using plasma lactate data obtained from 277 patients shortly after injury and before treatment. The ISS is based on the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) values of the individual injuries, being the sum of the squares of the values for the three most severely injured regions. Log (plasma lactate concen...

The clinical course of bronchiectasis is unpredictable, posing a challenge both in clinical practice and in research. Two mortality prediction scores, the bronchiectasis severity index (BSI) and FACED scores, have recently been developed. The aim of this study was to assess the ability of these scores to predict long-term mortality and to compare the two scores.The study was a single-centre ret...

BACKGROUND We test the hypothesis that prehospital interventions (PHIs) performed by skilled emergency medical service providers during ground or air transport adversely affect outcome in severely injured trauma patients. METHODS Consecutive trauma activations (March 2012 to June 2013) transported from the scene by air or ground emergency medical service providers were reviewed. PHI was defin...

Paediatric trauma centres seek to optimise the care of injured children. Trends in state-wide paediatric care and outcomes have not been examined in detail in Australia. This study examines temporal trends in paediatric trauma outcomes and factors influencing survival and length of stay. A retrospective review was conducted using data from the NSW Trauma Registry during 2003-2008 for children a...

BACKGROUND Contemporary understanding of the biomechanics, natural history, and methods of treating thoracolumbar spine injuries continues to evolve. Current classification schemes of these injuries, however, can be either too simplified or overly complex for clinical use. METHODS The Spine Trauma Group was given a survey to identify similarities in treatment algorithms for common thoracolumb...