Citation

Wolfson N. Int. Orthop. 2013; 37(8): 1439-1441.

Affiliation

California Pacific Medical Center, 45 Castro Street, Suite 337, San Francisco, CA, 94114, USA, nik@drwolfson.com.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s00264-013-1997-z

PMID

23827955

Abstract

Mass casualty events, either natural disasters or man-made, are associated with extremities injuries. The treating surgeon often faces a challenging decision: can the affected extremity be saved or amputated? The following article will present the author's view on the subject of triage and the use of scoring systems in the decision-making process whether to salvage or amputate an affected extremity. The author will analyse the existing scoring systems and emphasise significance of the regional factors: geographical, cultural and level of health care, as factors playing roles in this process.

Language: en