Academic emergency medicine : official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine
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To determine the significance of a low out-of-hospital systolic blood pressure (SBP) reading in blunt trauma patients who have a normal SBP upon ED arrival. ⋯ The injured patients who were hypotensive in the out-of-hospital setting but normotensive upon ED arrival were more severely injured and had more potential for blood loss than were the patients who were normotensive both in the out-of-hospital setting and in the ED. Out-of-hospital hypotension may be a clinical predictor of severe injury, even in the face of normal ED SBP. Prospective studies are indicated to validate this hypothesis.