| Popis: |
Emergency medical personnel must expeditiously triage acutely injured patients to the appropriate medical facility. Efficient and objective variables to facilitate this process and provide information to the receiving trauma center are needed. Currently, multiple variables are used to prognosticate injury severity and risk of mortality including vital signs, mental status, lactate, and base excess. We investigated the prehospital use of end-tidal carbon dioxide (ETCOWe performed a retrospective analysis of 557 acutely injured patients over 2 years at a Level 1 trauma center. All patients arriving as trauma activations with ETCOEnd-tidal carbon dioxide levels conferred a mortality rate of 38%, 17.3%, and 2.9% for low, normal, and high, respectively (End-tidal carbon dioxide is a more sensitive and specific predictor of mortality in the acutely injured patient compared to venous lactate, base deficit, blood pressure, or venous pH. Additional studies are needed to determine if ETCO |
