During the period from May 1992 until April 1993, 108 patients were admitted to Liverpool Hospital with Injury Severity Scores (ISS) > 15. Temperatures had been recorded in 100. Of these, 17 had a core temperature of less than 35°C documented within 24 h of arrival. The hypothermic group presented with more severe injuries and contained a disproportionate number of females. Hypothermia was found to be more common in the winter months, but it was not associated with a delay in reaching hospital from the time of injury. When injuries were ranked by ISS, both hypothermic and normothermic patients were equally likely to have received a blood transfusion; however, the mean number of units of packed cells transfused was greater for the hypothermic group with ISS < 41 than for the similarly injured normothermic group. Two patients in the hypothermic group had sustained bums, and both of these were hypothennic on arrival. All of the hypothermic patients who required surgery developed hypothermia in the operating theatre.
Laparoscopy is a useful modality in the diagnosis of peritoneal penetration1, but its therapeutic potential in abdominal trauma has yet to be fully assessed. This report describes its successful use in penetrating trauma.
Existing open diagnostic peritoneal lavage techniques (DPL) use small bore catheters. through a small lower midline incision or infra‐umbilical incision. This study evaluated a modified DPL technique using a 10 mm umbilical incision. with open insertion of a 20 French peritoneal lavage catheter. The catheter has 27 radial side holes in the terminal distal 13 cm, and a female Leur lock connector, Warmed saline is infused via a cystoscopy infusion set. The time required to peform a new technique was studied in 10 patients. The median time to catheter insertion was 2.4 ±3.8 min, infusion time 0.75± 0.3 min, effusion time 0.3 ±1.7 min, and a median total time of 7.6 ± 4.2 min (median ± s.d.). There were no complications. This technique of DPL is cosmetically attractive, much quicker than existing techniques and we have found its initial use encouraging.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.