J Trauma
-
The effectiveness of a pneumatic antishock garment (PASG) on severely hypotensive trauma patients (BP < or = 50 mm Hg) was studied using two data sets. The first included data from eight hospitals collected over 4 1/2 years; the second included 2 years of data from an additional eight hospitals. Data were collected by trained nurse abstractors whose interrater reliability was extremely high for AIS and ISS scoring. ⋯ Improvement in survival among PASG patients occurred despite an average scene time that was 4.7 minutes longer than that for non-PASG patients. No improvement in survival among PASG versus non-PASG patients with blood pressures of 50-70 mm Hg or in those with blood pressures of 90 mm Hg or less was found. We conclude that the use of PASG in severely hypotensive patients (BP < or = 50) should be considered medically acceptable pending randomized controlled studies.