Imposter or knight in shining armor? Pelvic circumferential compression devices (PCCD) for severe pelvic injuries in patients with multiple trauma: a trauma-registry analysis.

BACKGROUND: Pelvic Circumferential Compression Devices (PCCD) are standard in hemorrhage-control of unstable pelvic ring fractures (UPF). Controversial data on their usefulness exists. Aim of the study was to investigate whether prehospital application of PCCD can reduce mortality and transfusion requirements in UPF. METHODS: Retrospective cohort study. From 2016 until 2021, 63,371 adult severely injured patients were included into TraumaRegister DGU® of the German Trauma Society (TR-DGU). We analyzed PCCD use over time and compared patients with multiple trauma patients and UPF, who received prehospital PCCD to those who did not (noPCCD). Groups were adjusted for risk of prehospital PCCD application by propensity score matching. Primary endpoints were hospital mortality, standardized mortality rate (SMR) and transfusion requirements. RESULTS: Overall UPF incidence was 9% (N = 5880) and PCCD use increased over time (7.5% to 20.4%). Of all cases with UPF, 40.2% received PCCD and of all cases with PCCD application, 61% had no pelvic injury at all. PCCD patients were more severely injured and had higher rates of shock or transfusion. 24-h.-mortality and hospital mortality were higher with PCCD (10.9% vs. 9.3%; p = 0.033; 17.9% vs. 16.1%, p = 0.070). Hospital mortality with PCCD was 1% lower than predicted. SMR was in favor of PCCD but failed statistical significance (0.95 vs. 1.04, p = 0.101). 1,860 propensity score matched pairs were analyzed: NoPCCD-patients received more often catecholamines (19.6% vs. 18.5%, p = 0.043) but required less surgical pelvic stabilization in the emergency room (28.6% vs. 36.8%, p < 0.001). There was no difference in mortality or transfusion requirements. CONCLUSION: We observed PCCD overuse in general and underuse in UPF. Prehospital PCCD appears to be more a marker of injury severity and less triggered by presence of UPF. We found no salutary effect on survival or transfusion requirements. Inappropriate indication and technical flaw may have biased our results. TR-DGU does not contain data on these aspects. Further studies are necessary. Modular add-on questioners to the registry could offer one possible solution to overcome this limitation. We are concerned that PCCD use may be unfairly discredited by misinterpretation of the available evidence and strongly vote for a prospective trial.

[The chapters "Stop the bleed-prehospital" and "Coagulation management and volume therapy (emergency departement)" in the new S3 guideline "Polytrauma/severe injury treatment"]. / Die Kapitel "Stop the Bleed ­ Prähospital" sowie "Gerinnungsmanagement und Volumentherapie (Schockraum)" in der neuen S3-Leitlinie "Polytrauma/Schwerverletzten-Behandlung".

The S3 guideline on the treatment of patients with severe/multiple injuries by the German Association of the Scientific Medical Societies was updated between 2020 and 2022. This article describes the essence of the new chapter "Stop the bleed-prehospital" and the revised chapter "Coagulation management and volume therapy".

[Emergency intervention rate in the emergency room depending on the alerting criteria : Prospective data analysis of a supraregional trauma center]. / Notfallinterventionsrate bei Schockraumpatienten in Abhängigkeit von den Alarmierungskriterien : Prospektive Datenanalyse eines überregionalen Traumazentrums.

Trauma team alert (TTA) to the emergency room (ER) takes place in the event of disturbed vital signs or serious injuries (A criteria) or after a dangerous accident (B criteria). Due to low specificity and limited personnel resources, TTA is questioned for B criteria. The consequences would be an increase in undertriage and thus endangering patients. Due to the lack of data it is unclear whether adapted ER teams would be a solution to the problem.The aim of the study was to describe ER patients according to the TTA criteria and to collect the corresponding emergency intervention rates in ER.Over 1 year, all TTAs of a supraregional trauma center were prospectively recorded, categorized according to TTA criteria (A, B and NULL criteria) and compared descriptively. NULL criteria were TTAs for which neither A nor B criteria were met. Treatment data were documented according to the TraumaRegister DGU® standard form. Emergency interventions were intubation, chest tube, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, transfusion, coagulation substitution, external pelvic stabilization and surgical hemostasis.The TTA due to A, B and NULL criteria were performed in 19.5%, 51.2% and 29.3%, respectively. The mean injury severity (ISS ± standard deviation) was 20.6 ± 21.3 for A criteria, significantly higher than for B criteria (8.0 ± 7.1) and NULL criteria (5.6 ± 8.2). The emergency intervention rate for A , B and NULL criteria was 75%, 6% and 2.1%, respectively.Differentiation according to the TTA criteria results in patient collectives with different injury severity and emergency intervention rates. This result justifies considerations to adjust team composition based on TTA criteria, as long as it is ensured that critical conditions can be identified and remedied by adapted teams.

[Acute treatment of pregnant women after severe trauma-a retrospective multicenter analysis]. / Akutbehandlung schwangerer Patientinnen nach schwerem Trauma ­ eine retrospektive Multicenteranalyse.

BACKGROUND: For the medical team, the management of pregnant trauma patients is a particular challenge. The aim of this study is to compile this data and to determine differences between pregnant and not pregnant trauma patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We carried out a retrospective data analysis from the TraumaRegister DGU® with a comparison of 102 pregnant and 3135 not pregnant women of child-bearing age (16-45 years) from 2016-2018 who were treated in a trauma center. All patients were delivered to the resuscitation room and received intensive care treatment. RESULTS: In Germany, Austria and Switzerland 3.2% of all trauma patients (102 women) were pregnant. Women with an average age of 29 years suffered most often trauma as a result of a road traffic accident. Major trauma (Injury Severity Score [ISS] ≥16 points) was seen in 24.5% of the pregnant women and 37.4% of the nonpregnant women. A computer tomography (whole body computer tomography) was carried out in 32.7% of all pregnant women but in 79.8% of the nonpregnant women. As a result of the trauma, 2.9% of the pregnant and 3.5% of the not pregnant women died. The standardised mortality rate (SMR) was 0.42 in pregnant women and 0.63 in nonpregnant women. CONCLUSION: For the first time there is data regarding incidence, trauma mechanism, prehospital and in-hospital care as well as intensive care of pregnant trauma patients in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Further research regarding foetal outcome and trauma-related injuries in pregnant women is needed to develop an adjusted management for these patients ready to implement in trauma centres. Gynaecologists and obstetricians should be implemented in the trauma room team when needed.

[Development of a new module for the TraumaRegister DGU® : Better collation of the sequelae of severe injuries during pregnancy]. / Entwicklung eines neuen Moduls für das TraumaRegister DGU® : Folgen schwerer Verletzungen während der Schwangerschaft besser erfassen.

BACKGROUND: Life-threatening injuries during pregnancy are a rare occurrence. The TraumaRegister DGU® (TR-DGU) has been recording whether seriously injured women were pregnant since 2016. This information is not sufficient to enable a differentiated assessment of the quality of care because parameters, such as gestational age, state of pregnancy at discharge and survival of the child are missing. The TraumaRegister working group of the committee on emergency medicine, intensive care and severe trauma management (section NIS) of the German Trauma Society (DGU) therefore came to the conclusion that the fetal outcome or the intactness of the pregnancy after acute treatment is an important measure of the quality of care of pregnant women. They commissioned a task force to work out a suitable data set for a better analysis of such cases. This article presents the so-called fetus module in detail. METHODS: The data set was developed in an interdisciplinary process together with accredited experts from the German Society for Gynecology and Obstetrics (DGGG), the German Society for Perinatal Medicine (DGPM) and the Society for Neonatology and Pediatric Intensive Care Medicine (GNPI). RESULTS: The fetus module comprises 20 parameters describing the pregnancy, the condition of the mother and child on admission and discharge. CONCLUSION: The fetus module will provide important data to make the process and outcome quality of care of severely injured pregnant women measurable and to develop prognostic instruments with which predictions about high-risk constellations for the outcome of mother and child can be made.

[Challenges of digitalization in trauma care]. / Herausforderungen der Digitalisierung in der Traumaversorgung.

The increasing digitalization of social life opens up new possibilities for modern health care. This article describes innovative application possibilities that could help to sustainably improve the treatment of severe injuries in the future with the help of methods such as big data, artificial intelligence, intelligence augmentation, and machine learning. For the successful application of these methods, suitable data sources must be available. The TraumaRegister DGU® (TR-DGU) currently represents the largest database in Germany in the field of care for severely injured patients that could potentially be used for digital innovations. In this context, it is a good example of the problem areas such as data transfer, interoperability, standardization of data sets, parameter definitions, and ensuring data protection, which still represent major challenges for the digitization of trauma care. In addition to the further development of new analysis methods, solutions must also continue to be sought to the question of how best to intelligently link the relevant data from the various data sources.

Fluid resuscitation after severe trauma injury : U-shaped associations between tetrastarch dose and survival time or frequency of acute kidney failure.

BACKGROUND: Using tetrastarch for fluid resuscitation after a severe trauma injury may increase risks of death and acute kidney injury. The importance of tetrastarch dose, however, is unknown. METHODS: A retrospective observational study was performed in two trauma centres using data on type and amount of fluids (balanced crystalloids or tetrastarch) used for pre- and acute in-hospital shock management. We evaluate independent associations between the relative and absolute volumes of tetrastarch and 90-day survival time or the frequency of severe acute kidney failure (AKF). RESULTS: We studied 271 patients who had sustained a severe blunt trauma injury (average predicted mortality according to the Revised Injury Severity Classification Score (RISC) 15.1 ± 1.4% [mean, standard deviation]), and who had required more than 2 days of intensive care therapy. In all, 75.3% of patients had received tetrastarch with a crystalloid/colloid ratio of 2.93 ± 2.60. The 90-day mortality was 11.1%, and 7.8% of the patients developed severe AKF. After adjusting for confounders, we found a U-shaped, nonlinear association between absolute or relative volumes of tetrastarch and survival time (p = 0.003 and 0.025, respectively). Optimal relative volumes of tetrastarch approximately ranged from 20 to 30% of total fluids. Giving less than about 1000 ml, or more than about 2000 ml tetrastarch was significantly associated with an increased risk of developing severe AKF (p = 0.023). CONCLUSIONS: There was a complex U­shaped association between the tetrastarch dose and morbidity/mortality of patients after a severe trauma injury. The optimal crystalloid/tetrastarch ratio for acute shock management appears to range from about 2.5 to 4.0.

[Importance of trauma and emergency surgery for German metropolitan emergency departments-an analysis of 524,716 emergency patients]. / Stellenwert der Unfallchirurgie für die Notaufnahmen einer deutschen Millionenstadt ­ Eine Auswertung von 524.716 Notfallpatienten.

BACKGROUND: The future of emergency departments in Germany is influenced by increasing numbers of patients, demographic changes, new therapeutic concepts, current legislation and expert opinions. There is a lack of reliable data concerning the quantity and the type of injuries and diseases presenting in emergency departments. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This descriptive, epidemiological study included 14 emergency departments in Munich (1.41 million inhabitants in 2014), where 524,716 patients were treated from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014. 393,587 were included in this prospectively planned subgroup analysis. Patients presenting in special departments, such as gynecology or ophthalmology (59,523) or cases without a documented diagnosis (71,606) were excluded. Cases were assigned to the discipline trauma surgery or orthopedics according to the ICD-10 diagnosis chapters "injuries, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes" and "diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue". RESULTS: Of the 393,587 cases included, 169,208 were treated due to trauma or orthopedic diseases (43%). 134,507 underwent outpatient treatment (79%) and 34,701 were admitted on the same day (21%). 29,920 patients suffered from head injuries (18%), 31,143 fractures (20%) and 24,367 deep wounds (14%) were recorded. On workdays between 8am and 10am, up to 47 patients per hour were treated and between 1pm and 3pm, up to 36 patients per hour. On weekends, most patients presented between 11am and 7pm. CONCLUSION: The present study analyzed the frequency of major diagnoses corresponding to the various medical disciplines including more than 500,000 patients. Of the emergency cases included, 43% were allocated to trauma surgery or orthopedics. These patients presented in the emergency departments around the clock and necessitate the permanent attendance of a trauma and emergency surgeon. Thereby, timely surgical care and decisions regarding indications for surgery and admission are ensured. Competence in trauma and emergency surgery is therefore essential for emergency departments.

[Optimization of criteria for activation of trauma teams : Avoidance of overtriage and undertriage]. / Optimierung der Kriterien zur Schockraumalarmierung : Vermeidung von Über- und Untertriage.

INTRODUCTION: Severely injured patients are supposed to be admitted to hospital via the trauma room. Appropriate criteria are contained in the S3 guidelines on the treatment of patients with severe/multiple injuries (S3-GL); however, some of these criteria require scarce hospital resources while the patients then often clinically present as uninjured. There are tendencies to streamline the trauma team activation criteria (TTAC); however, additional undertriage must be avoided. A study group of the emergency, intensive care medicine and treatment of the severely injured section (NIS) is in the process of optimizing the TTAC for the German trauma system. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In order to solve the objective the following multi-step approach is necessary: a) definition of patients who potentially benefit from TTA, b) verification of the definition in the TraumaRegister DGU® (TR-DGU), c) carrying out a prospective, multicenter study in order to determine overtriage and undertriage, thereby validating the activation criteria and d) revision of the current TTAC. RESULTS: This article summarizes the consensus criteria of the group assumed to be capable of identifying patients who potentially benefit from TTA. These criteria are used to test if TTA was justified in a specific case; however, as the TTCA of the S3-GL are not fully incorporated into the TR-DGU dataset and because cases must also be considered which were not subject to trauma room treatment and therefore were not included in the TR-DGU, it is necessary to perform a prospective full survey of all individuals in order to be able to measure overtriage and undertriage. CONCLUSION: Currently, the TR-DGU can only provide limited evidence on the quality of the TTAC recommended in Germany. This problem has been recognized and will be solved by conducting a prospective DGU-supported study, the results of which can be used to improve the TR-DGU dataset in order to enable further considerations on the quality of care (e. g. composition and size of the trauma team).

[The TraumaRegister DGU® dataset, its development over 25 years and advances in the care of severely injured patients]. / Der Datensatz des TraumaRegister DGU®, seine Entwicklung über 25 Jahre und Fortschritte in der Schwerverletzenversorgung.

BACKGROUND: Since the publication in 1993, the dataset and documentation form of the TraumaRegister DGU® (TR-DGU) have continuously evolved. On the occasion of the 25th anniversary the authors have analyzed this evolution in order to reflect it in the light of medical progress in the treatment of the severely injured. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Enrolled in the study were 5 reference data entry sheets from the years 1993, 1996, 2002, 2009 and 2016. Every piece of information (item) queried therein was entered into the study database, was categorized by topic and counted for further analysis. RESULTS: The arrangement of the 4­page data entry form has remained practically unchanged since 1993 and includes an average of 212 items. A total of 491 items were identified of which 64 were present throughout every dataset. Based on the average extent of the form this equals a proportion of approximately 30%. The dataset actually shows much more consistency than this number suggests because many changes can be traced back to a smarter design of the data entry form. Most items fell into the categories "results/diagnosis" (143 items/29.1%), "coagulation" (104/21.2%) and "surgical approach" (40/8.1%). Many items serve as raw data for the calculation of prognostic risk scores, such as the trauma and injury severity score (TRISS), the revised injury severity classification II (RISC II) and the trauma associated severe hemorrhage (TASH) score. Currently, nine scores can be calculated from the dataset. CONCLUSION: The members of the working group TraumaRegister all actively participate in the treatment of severely injured patients. For 25 years this group has managed to unify the latest medical developments and well-established parameters within the TR-DGU dataset at a relatively constant degree of effort for documentation. Practice in place of theory is the driving force behind this development that serves quality assurance and research in the treatment of severely injured patients.

[Human factors in medicine]. / Human Factors in der Medizin.

The concept of human factors is commonly used in the context of patient safety and medical errors, all too often ambiguously. In actual fact, the term comprises a wide range of meanings from human-machine interfaces through human performance and limitations up to the point of working process design; however, human factors prevail as a substantial cause of error in complex systems. This article presents the full range of the term human factors from the (emergency) medical perspective. Based on the so-called Swiss cheese model by Reason, we explain the different types of error, what promotes their emergence and on which level of the model error prevention can be initiated.

[Human factors in medicine]. / Human Factors in der Medizin.

The concept of human factors is commonly used in the context of patient safety and medical errors, all too often ambiguously. In actual fact, the term comprises a wide range of meanings from human-machine interfaces through human performance and limitations up to the point of working process design; however, human factors prevail as a substantial cause of error in complex systems. This article presents the full range of the term human factors from the (emergency) medical perspective. Based on the so-called Swiss cheese model by Reason, we explain the different types of error, what promotes their emergence and on which level of the model error prevention can be initiated.

[Recommendations for Releasing the Pelvic Binder After a Non-Invasive Pelvic Stabilisation Procedure Under Emergency Room Conditions]. / "Clear-the-Pelvis-Algorithmus": Handlungsempfehlung zur Freigabe des Beckens nach nicht invasiver Stabilisierung mittels Beckengurt im Rahmen der Schockraumversorgung.

Severe brain, thoracic and intrapelvic injuries, as well as heavy bleeding, are the main causes of death in patients with major trauma. Unstable pelvic ring fractures can cause this bleeding and the so-called "C problem". This is usually due to haemorrhagic shock caused by the loss of large volumes of blood from the presacral venous plexus, iliac vessels and the fracture surfaces. Many clinical studies have shown that, in the preclinical setting, unstable pelvic ring injuries are often underestimated. The application of a non-invasive external pelvic ring stabilisation (pelvic binder) is therefore recommended if a pelvic fracture is possible. Several circumferential pelvic binders have been developed and their prehospital use is increasing. Clinical and biomechanical studies have demonstrated that there is a favourable haemodynamic effect in unstable fractures, due to rapid closure of the pelvic ring. It is unclear whether the pelvic binder can be safely removed in a presumably haemodynamically stable patient. A correctly placed pelvic binder leads to anatomical closure of the pelvic ring. Therefore unstable pelvic ring fractures may be clinically and radiologically overlooked. This is a particular problem in unconscious patients. Furthermore, the real severity of the injury may then be underestimated in the diagnostic evaluation. Unconsidered opening of the pelvic binder can thus provoke renewed deterioration of the circulatory situation, especially if the injury was adequately treated by the binder and the C problem was controlled. The aim of this article is to describe procedures for handling pelvic binders, particularly as to how to deal with an already applied pelvic binder and how to "clear the pelvic region" while reducing the risk of haemodynamic instability. A detailed analysis of the literature and a Delphi-like discussion among several experts were performed. The following points were raised: 1) Assessment of the clinical situation, including trauma kinematics. 2) Assessment of the haemodynamic status. 3) Check of the need to open the pelvic binder for diagnostic/therapeutic measures before completing all diagnostic tests. 4) Assessment of the radiology diagnostic testing and release of the pelvic region. The result is a so-called "clear the pelvis algorithm" which describes a structured approach according to specific criteria and which specifies the circumstances under which the pelvic binder can be opened. Additional studies are necessary to analyse the applicability and safety of this algorithm in a clinical context. Our advice is not to "clear" the pelvis if no X-rays or CT scans of the pelvis have been carried out without (or with an opened) pelvic binder.