Abstract
Hemorrhage remains a major cause of potentially preventable deaths. Trauma and massive transfusion are associated with coagulopathy secondary to tissue injury, hypoperfusion, dilution, and consumption of clotting factors and platelets. Concepts of damage control surgery have evolved prioritizing early control of the cause of bleeding by non-definitive means, while hemostatic control resuscitation seeks early control of coagulopathy.Hemostatic resuscitation provides transfusions with plasma and platelets in addition to red blood cells in an immediate and sustained manner as part of the transfusion protocol for massively bleeding patients. Although early and effective reversal of coagulopathy is documented, the most effective means of preventing coagulopathy of massive transfusion remains debated and randomized controlled studies are lacking.Viscoelastical whole blood assays, like TEG and ROTEM however appear advantageous for identifying coagulopathy in patients with severe hemorrhage as opposed the conventional coagulation assays.In our view, patients with uncontrolled bleeding, regardless of it´s cause, should be treated with hemostatic control resuscitation involving early administration of plasma and platelets and earliest possible goal-directed, based on the results of TEG/ROTEM analysis. The aim of the goal-directed therapy should be to maintain a normal hemostatic competence until surgical hemostasis is achieved, as this appears to be associated with reduced mortality.
Highlights
Hemorrhage requiring massive transfusion remains a major cause of potentially preventable deaths
We recently suggested that the coagulopathy observed in trauma patients, which reflects the state of the fluid phase including its cellular elements i.e., circulating whole blood, is a consequence of the degree of the tissue injury and the thereby generated sympathoadrenal activity and importantly, critically related to the degree of endothelial damage, with a progressively more procoagulant endothelium inducing a gradient of increasing anticoagulation towards the fluid phase [28]
We recently reported that disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) was not a part of the early coagulopathy secondary to trauma [33] though this may develop later in the course of resuscitation as described by Gando et al [34]
Summary
Hemorrhage requiring massive transfusion remains a major cause of potentially preventable deaths. Especially in the light of the disappointing results from the trial regarding the use of recombinant factor VII in trauma, that adequately powered double-blind randomized studies are required before routine use of goal-directed administration of procoagulant agents to injured patients with bleeding is recommended This is especially important with regard to the safety of these agents, which, as opposed to FFP, do not contain relevant concentrations of natural anticoagulant factors such as antithrombin, protein C and protein S, and this may be of importance in the later phase after hemostatic control has been established [118]. Crystalloids clearly have not sufficient volume expanding effects and based on the findings of increased bleeding, transfusion requirements and mortality in septic patients receiving synthetic colloids [119] it could be feared that similar results would surfer in severely injured trauma patients
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