Monthly Archives: August 2022

Prehospital

Trauma Patient Transport By Police, Not EMS

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When I was at Penn 30+ years ago, I was fascinated to see that police officers were allowed to transport penetrating trauma patients to the hospital. They had no medical training and no specific equipment. They basically tossed the patient into the back seat, drove as fast as possible to a trauma center, and dropped them off. Then they (hopefully) hosed down the inside of the squad car.

Granted, it was fast. But did it benefit the patient? The trauma group at Penn decided to look at this to see if there was some benefit (survival) to this practice. They retrospectively looked at 5 years of data in the mid-2000’s, thus comparing the results of police transport with reasonably state of the art EMS transport.

They found over 2100 penetrating injury transports during this time frame (!), and roughly a quarter of those (27%) were transported by police. About 71% were gunshots vs 29% stabs.

Here are the factoids:

  • The police transported more badly injured patients (ISS=14) than EMS (ISS=10)
  • About 21% of police transports died, compared to 15% for EMS
  • But when mortality was corrected for the higher ISS transported by police, it was equivalent for the two modes of transport

Although they did not show a survival benefit to this practice, there was certainly no harm done. And in busy urban environments, such a policy could offload some of the workload from busy EMS services.

Bottom line: Certainly this is not a perfect paper. But it does add more fuel to the “stay and play” vs “scoop and run” debate. It seems to lend credence to the concept that, in the field, less is better in penetrating trauma. What really saves these patients is definitive control of bleeding, which neither police nor paramedics can provide. Therefore, whoever gets the patient to the trauma center in the least time wins. And so does the patient.

Related posts:

Reference: Injury-adjusted mortality of patients transported by police following penetrating trauma. Acad Emerg Med 18(1):32-37, 2011.

Device

Fracture Care Of The Future: Traditional Casts vs 3D-Printed Braces

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I’ve been fascinated by 3D printing for at least a decade.  Here are some examples from previous posts:

Unfortunately, practical applications have been relatively limited in the field of trauma.  But a lot has been going on in the background. The trauma research group at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam recently published a systematic review on very practical work using 3D printing to produce casts and splints.

Sounds like a very mundane problem to through high tech at, right? But for those of you who look after patients with fractures that have been casted, you know the problems that can arise. Casts can be too tight. They can be ill-fitting. The patient may have soft tissue injuries that require windows cut into the side of the cast. Additional technology such as electrical stimulators may be indicated to enhance healing.

The old-fashioned way of creating a plaster or fiberglass cast seems crude. It is shaped by hand using skill and a fair amount of guesswork. If it’s just a bit too tight, serious complications may occur. If windows are not cut properly, it can destabilize the entire cast.

The Rotterdam trauma research group performed a systematic review of 12 papers that have been published on the topic of 3D-printed casts used in the treatment of forearm fractures. The authors found that most currently use a technique called fused deposition modeling with a polylactic acid substrate.

Instead of relying on subjective skill and luck to shape the brace, the uninjured forearm is scanned with a 3D scanner. The data is fed to a computer aided design (CAD) workstation and a mirror image is created and further refined. Special features such as soft tissue windows or entry points for bone stimulators can be designed into the brace at that time. Because the strength of polycarbonate exceeds that of plaster and fiberglass, it is possible to create a design with a great deal of open area so the underlying skin can be monitored. And allowances can be made for areas with swelling not present on the control extremity.

The data is then fed to a 3D printer to actually create the cast. Here’s an example:

This design is stronger that a traditional cast, is cool and comfortable, and avoids problems with hidden tissue injury or unrecognized foreign objects dropping into the cast creating major problems.

The use of 3D-printed casts and braces is relatively new and is used in only a few centers. For this reason, we do not have enough numbers to show that it is equivalent to traditional casting. Yet. But as the price continues to drop and use becomes more widespread, it’s only a matter of time before you start seeing these items in your own trauma center.

Reference: Personalize d 3D-printed forearm braces as an alternative for a traditional plaster cast or splint; A systematic review. Injury, in press, July 29, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.injury.2022.07.020