Treatment of Wounded in the Combat Zone

Abstract

Authors presented their own experiences in treating 735 wounded in high-intensity combat zones in the territories of former Yugoslavia during 1991 to 1992. The mobile field hospital with surgical crews was situated 5 to 10 km from the front line, and its basic task had been continuous triage, immediate resuscitation with vital surgical aid, as well as organization of adequate primary and secondary air evacuation. At the field hospital level, fresh wounds were explored according to principles of war surgery, and major surgical interventions were performed in 3.3% of the wounded. Patients with massive hematothorax were treated with autotransfusion. Mortality at this primary level, field hospital was 0.75% with primary immediate resuscitation and 1.9% with immediate evacuation. We concluded that immediate resuscitation with delayed transport had advantages, compared with fast evacuation of only the wounded.

Treatment of Casualties in a Forward Hospital of Indian Army : Nine year Experience

“…In modern warfare, 20-47% of injuries are caused by bullets [15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22], though occasionally in a highly specialized operation like "Desert Storm" the proportion was only 5% [23]. In the present series 44% of these injuries were due to bullets ( Table 2).…”

A Military-Centered Approach to Neuroprotection for Traumatic Brain Injury

“…Historically, combat-related traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been one of the leading causes of military casualties, responsible for 20–25% of battle-incurred injuries in previous conflicts and accounting for upwards of 42% of combat-related deaths that occur “after” reaching a surgical ward (Arnold and Cutting, 1978; Leedham et al, 1993; Salazar et al, 1995; Jevtic et al, 1996; Owens et al, 2008). More recent epidemiological data generated from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan indicates that up to 30% of combat-related trauma occurs in the head and neck region and that the vast majority (over 80%) of these casualties result from blast explosion (Owens et al, 2008).…”

Femoral Vessel Injuries in Modern Warfare since Vietnam

“…[1][2][3] Mostwounds require simple debridement and wound care. Despite the overall lowmortalityoflower extremityinjuries, a high percentage of amputations and many deaths in modem conflict~are attri?utable to vascular injury in the lowerextremity, particularlyWith the femoral vessels.1-6 The most distressing are reports ofpreventabledeaths ofservice personnel due to femoral vessel injuries.…”