Injury
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To investigate the relationship between severity of hypernatremia and the risk of death for patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who have been admitted to the neurosurgical intensive care unit (NICU). ⋯ Severe hypernatremia is an independent risk factor with extremely high odds ratio for death in patients with TBI who are admitted to the NICU.
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Emergency thoracotomy (ET) can be life-saving in highly selected trauma patients, especially after penetrating chest trauma. There is little information on the outcome of ET in European trauma centres. Here we report our experience in Iceland. ⋯ ET is used infrequently in Iceland and the number of patients was small. More than half of them survived the procedure. This is especially encouraging considering how severely injured the patients were.
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Lung injury is one of the complications of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). This is the first study to describe the MDCT and radiographic findings of lung injuries secondary to CPR. ⋯ Lung injuries are frequent complications in patients who underwent CPR. Compared with radiography, MDCT has benefits for the detection and characterisation of CPR-associated lung injuries. The most common findings of lung injuries after CPR were bilateral ground glass opacity and consolidation, usually in the dependent area of both lungs.
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Bone electrical potentials change with the force applied. Also, fracture alters the bone electrical potential, so it becomes more electronegative. These potentials have an important role in fracture healing, bone growth and remodelling. Literature data on the influence of fracture operative treatment on bone electrical potentials, and possible consequences of this influence, are sparse. The objective of this study was to establish a method of intraoperative bone potential measurement, and to try to find a correlation between electrical potential and fracture type, osteosynthesis method and prognosis. ⋯ Bone potentials, caused by fracture, can be measured intraoperatively; the operative procedure appears to influence their generation. Measured potentials depend on the fracture type, and could be correlated with prognosis.
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This paper provides an insight into Croatian health system with special focus on trauma care. The current situation is explained from a domestic point of view, but an independent review by foreign observers is also included. ⋯ A good start is definitely a reorganization of existing knowledge on the basis of internationally licesed courses and the adoption of trauma registry as a standard for future discussion. Individual components of the trauma system can not be separately "optimized" so clinical and financial decisions should be planned exclusively on the integral level.