OBJECTIVES To identify the conditions at certain sites on slopes known as black spots for injury. METHOD In the Hafjell and Voss alpine ski areas in Norway, 1410 skiing injuries were recorded from December 1990 through the 1996 season. In Hafjell, 183 of these injuries were plotted on an area map during the two first seasons. Similarly, in Voss, 214 injuries were plotted on an area map for tw...

Ensuring adequate vascular access in major trauma patients prior to decompensative physiological processes is crucial to patient outcomes. Most protocols suggest achieving two 18-gauge or larger intravenous lines immediately in patients with major trauma. We discuss a quality improvement approach to ensure that >90% of patients with major trauma (as defined by an injury severity score ≥12) at a...

BACKGROUND Circulating levels of cell-free DNA increase in many pathologic conditions. However, notable discrepancies in the quantitative analysis of cell-free DNA from a large number of laboratories have become a considerable pitfall, hampering its clinical application. METHODS We designed a novel recombinant DNA fragment that could be applied as an internal standard in a newly developed and...

BACKGROUND The Injury Severity Score (ISS) is a widely accepted method of measuring severity of traumatic injury. A modification has been proposed--the New Injury Severity Score (NISS). This has been shown to predict mortality better in adult trauma patients, but it had no predictive benefit in pediatric patients. The aim of this study was to determine whether the NISS outperforms the ISS in a ...

OBJECTIVES This study aims to compare injury and trauma severity as measured by the 1998 and 2005 revisions of the Abbreviated Injury Sca le and to determine the mortality in the Injury Severity Score and the New Injury Severity Score in both versions. METHOD This cross-sectional retrospective study analyzed injuries of trauma patients from three university hospitals in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Eac...

We report a new clinically relevant model of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury in a 10-day-old rat pup. Bilateral carotid artery occlusion and 8% hypoxia (1 to 15 mins, BCAO-H) was induced with varying degrees of injury (mild, moderate, severe), which was quantified using magnetic resonance imaging including diffusion-weighted and T2-weighted imaging at 24 h and 21/28 days. We developed a magnet...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between pulmonary artery catheter (PAC) use and mortality in a large cohort of injured patients. We hypothesized that PAC use is associated with improved survival in critically injured trauma patients. DESIGN Retrospective database analysis. SETTING A total of 268 level 1 trauma centers from across the United States. PATIENTS A total of 53,312 patient...

OBJECTIVE To compare fasciotomy rates and Injury Severity Scores (ISSs) before and after tourniquets were fielded for combat casualties in March 2005. METHODS A military trauma registry was used to identify 4332 casualties with limb injury between 2003 and 2006. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to compare changes in ISSs, limb Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) scores, and...

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...