Citation

Shafi S, Elliott AC, Gentilello L. J. Trauma 2005; 59(5): 1081-1085.

Affiliation

Department of Surgery, Division of Burn, Trauma and Surgical Critical Care and Center for Biostatistics and Clinical Sciences, University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas, Texas.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, Lippincott Williams and Wilkins)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

16385283

Abstract

BACKGROUND:: Successful application of induced hypothermia (HT) after stroke and cardiac arrest has led to a resurgence of interest in its potential protective effects in trauma patients. Although clinical studies demonstrate an adverse effect, they consist of small studies from single institutions. We tested the hypothesis that HT is associated with improved survival in trauma patients by analyzing a large, national trauma database. METHODS:: The study included all patients in the National Trauma Data Bank (1994-2002) aged 18 to 55 years old with temperature at presentation to the emergency department and base deficit (BD) recorded. Hypothermic (temperature, <35 degrees C; n = 3267) patients and patients with normothermia (temperature, >/=35 degrees C; n = 35,283) patients were compared. Two analyses were conducted to control for the association between HT and injury severity. First, hypothermic and normothermic (NT) patients were stratified by injury severity score (ISS) and shock (blood pressure