Zentralblatt für Chirurgie
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Review Comparative Study
[Value of clinical scoring systems for evaluation of injury severity and as an instrument for quality management of severely injured patients].
Trauma Score Systems attempt to summarize the severity of injury in a single value. They provide a better classification of trauma patients and translate different severities of injury in a common language. They enable thereby comparisons between hospitals or trauma systems. ⋯ Glasgow Coma Scale, Revised Trauma Score, Injury Severity Score and TRISS are the most often used international scores for severely injured patients. Their sensitivity and specificity, validity, reliability and practicability have been studied and proved in many trials. The role of these scoring systems for quality management purposes in the treatment of severe trauma is actually studied with the Trauma Registry of the German Society for Trauma Surgery.
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Sequential organ failure after multiple trauma emerges from a whole-body inflammatory process which develops as a complex host defense response to hypovolemic shock/resuscitation and traumatic tissue injury. Successful prevention and treatment involves exact assessment of inflicted damage and profound knowledge of the different stages of posttraumatic immune alterations. Local release of potent inflammatory mediators (cytokines, complement, arachidonic acid derivatives, reactive oxygen metabolites) primarily induces a repair process. ⋯ Diffuse capillary leakage and microcirculatory disorder prepare cellular dysfunction. Secondary severe immune defects support septic complications which maintain an autodestructive process. Therapeutical advances depend on the analysis of local and time-dependent expression of relevant inflammatory mediators and cellular signalling systems.
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Review
[Does multi-vessel disease of brain supplying arteries modify the procedure in carotid operations?].
In a prospective evaluation 159 patients with carotid artery stenosis showed a multiple artery disease in 78 to 99% depending on the grade of cerebral artery insufficiency. Contralateral occlusion process could be detected in 15.7%, internal and common carotid artery occlusion in 16 patients (10%). 1595 patients picked out of the literature have been analyzed in respect of the natural history which showed a risk to develop a stroke in 4.5%/year. In further 1286 operated patients of other reports the morbidity and mortality rate ranged 4.5% and the risk of further neurologic events after operation was 2.4%/year. The use of an intraluminal shunt after thrombendarterectomy proved to be a good procedure to lower the morbidity and mortality rate without any intraoperative monitoring.
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Operative procedures in multiple injured patients consist in the first stage in life-saving operations such as control of bleeding and cerebral decompression. Operative measures during the urgent second operative phase have to be undertaken under consideration of the development of a multiple organ failure syndrome. ⋯ Delayed operative procedures should only be performed after stabilization of the overall patient situation to prevent enhancement of the systemic inflammatory response. The required operative procedures of the multiple injuries have to be attributed to the respective operative phases.
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Over the last 30 years intensive care medicine has undergone drastic changes not only because of changes in patient population but also because of the progress in medical technology. Given that resources are finite and limited medical and socio-ethical principles should be applied for the distribution and withdrawal of these resources. ⋯ Whilst in intensive care patients should be scored every day to identify as early as possible those patients who are going to die and those who are going to survive in order to use intensive care resources efficiently. After discharge from intensive care quality of life should be an important factor to assess intensive care performance.