Tag Archives: abstracts

Abstracts, Complications

Best Of AAST #6: Chronic Disease In Young Trauma Patients

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Worldwide, the proportion of older people is growing. With that is an increase in the number of older folks with medical comorbidities like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Trauma professionals recognize these conditions’ negative impact on recovery after injury.

But is being young becoming the new old? The trauma group at WakeMed performed a retrospective multi-center study to tease out an estimate of the prevalence of these conditions (plus one more: alcohol/substance use) in injured young(er) people. They studied trauma patients aged 18-40 over three years, examining their charts for evidence of the conditions listed that had been previously undiagnosed.

Here are the factoids:

  • Of the 6,307 patients included, a startling 4,843 (77%) had at least one underlying disease, usually hypertension or obesity
  • Using their multivariate models, they found that age was (barely) a predictor, as were male sex ( 1.43x) and uninsured status (1.6x)
  • Only a quarter of patients had a primary care physician (PCP), but this did not increase the presence of underlying disease
  • Patients found to have these conditions were twice as likely to be referred to a PCP, although this referral rate was still very low (14% vs. 8%)
  • There was no difference in inpatient complications or hospital length of stay

The authors concluded that the undiagnosed disease burden in young adult trauma patients is high. They recommend rigorous screening measures and appropriate referrals.

Bottom line: This is an interesting abstract revealing what we all probably subconsciously recognize. Younger people are not as healthy as they once were. The numbers with obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and substance use are now staggering, with over three-quarters of patients in this convenience study impacted.

Abnormalities are often found on the lab panels drawn during a trauma activation or upon admission. Unfortunately, we do not always act on them since they don’t appear to have anything to do with the trauma.

This abstract makes it clear that the disease burden in this group is high. It is very likely that those affected will probably develop complications at an earlier age and will suffer a decrease in their overall healthspan as they age. The only and most important thing we can do is pay attention and set our patients up with a primary care physician on discharge to begin working on their potential health problems.

Abstracts, Thorax

Best Of AAST #3: When To Place A Chest Tube For Hemothorax

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There is an art to deciding when to place a  chest tube for either hemothorax or pneumothorax. For the most part, the trauma professional examines the imaging and then uses some unknown internal metric to declare that it is “too big.” Then it’s time to insert some type of chest drain.

There have been attempts over the years to make this decision more quantitative. One of the better-known ones is the 2-cm rule for pneumothorax. If the distance from the chest wall to the lung on the chest x-ray is >2cm, it is “too big.”

But what about hemothorax? The Medical College of Wisconsin trauma group performed a retrospective review of 391 patient charts to test a new 300cc rule defining when a hemothorax is “too big.” This guideline was implemented in 2018-2019, and patients presenting before implementation were compared to those arriving after.

The 300cc threshold is determined by using Mergo’s formula for calculating the volume of a square prism. Obviously, this requires a CT scan for calculation, so patients who had a tube placed before scanning or did not have one were excluded. They were also excluded from the study if their pneumothorax met the 2-cm rule. The authors studied how many patients could be observed, how many needed tube drainage, observation failure, and later need for a VATS procedure or thoracotomy.

Here are the factoids:

  • About 60% of the study group was admitted after the new criteria were implemented, and both groups were demographically similar
  • After implementation, the number of patients that were just observed increased significantly from 52% to 71%
  • Of course, this means that the number of chest tubes inserted was significantly less (42% vs. 61%)
  • There was no difference in observation failure (delayed placement of a tube), 18% vs. 24%
  • There were also no differences in pulmonary complications, 30-day readmissions, or 30-day mortality
  • The average ICU and hospital length of stays were significantly shorter as well

The authors concluded that implementing their 300cc guidelines correlated with decreased length of stay and no increase in failure or complication rates.

Bottom line: Although this is a relatively small series, the differences between the groups quickly achieved significance. There are three major questions that I have. First, how was the 300cc threshold arrived at? Was this borne of clinical judgment, or did some previous work suggest it?

My next question has to deal with the accuracy of the volume calculation. Mergo’s formula was used to determine the volume of a rectangular solid. As we all know, hemothoraces and pneumothoraces are not cubes. They can be very irregular and influenced by patient position. However, I did find a paper from the University of Florida that found the correlation coefficient between the volume calculated by Mergo’s formula vs. using 3-D software estimation was 0.9, which is excellent. So this approximation appears to be a very good one.

Finally, using the 300cc rule is predicated on getting a CT scan. Does every patient need a chest CT? Part of the resuscitation process for major trauma involves obtaining a chest X-ray. The obviously large hemothorax can justify inserting a chest tube at that point. But the reality is that most of these patients do go on to chest CT, so this is a minor change in practice for most. 

Although I love to see confirmatory studies before practice changes, this one study can lead us to change our practice guidelines now. It is a relatively minor one and will allow us to avoid placement of a few more chest tubes and to shave off a few days of hospital stay. The logical follow-up study for the authors is to extend the post-discharge window for complications to 60 or 90 days to ensure that delayed procedures were not required in the observation group.

References:

  • Implementing the 300-cc rule safely decreases chest tube placement in traumatic hemothorax. AAST 2023 Plenary paper #22.
  • New formula for quantification of pleural effusions from computed tomography. J Thorac Imaging. 1999 Apr;14(2):122-5. 

 

Abstracts, Extremity

Best of AAST 2023 #2: Immediate Postoperative Prosthesis

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Blunt vehicular trauma is the most common cause of severe lower extremity trauma, particularly motorcycle crashes. Occasionally, the injury is so severe that the limb cannot be saved, and amputation is necessary. The conventional treatment is to protect the amputation incision, provide physical therapy, and fit a prosthesis once the stump is mature. This typically takes a month or two.

Unfortunately, losing any limb has a significant psychological impact on our patients’ physical and mental well-being. The concept of immediate postoperative prosthesis (IPOP) has been gaining traction in recent years in an attempt to improve early mobility and mental health among these amputees.

A group from India designed a randomized, controlled trial to compare patients undergoing IPOP after lower extremity amputation to those receiving conventional prosthetic treatment. They randomly enrolled 30 patients in each group and measured differences in quality of life, depression and anxiety, and various mobility scores.

Here are the factoids:

  • Both groups were modestly injured, with 85% having ISS < 15; this indicates that injuries were mostly limited to the extremity
  • Mangle extremity severity score was also low, indicating the incidence of vascular and severe soft tissue injury was also low
  • Quality of life scores for the physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains were significantly higher in the IPOP group
  • The Amputee Mobility Predictor score (AMP) was significantly higher after 12 weeks after IPOP
  • The Trinity Amputee Prosthesis Experiences Scales (TAPES) for psychosocial, activity restriction, and prosthetic satisfaction domains were significantly better in the IPOP group
  • The physical screening tests for directional control and overall stability were also significantly higher in IPOP patients

The authors concluded that IPOP improves quality of life, decreases depression and anxiety, and increases mobility in amputees compared to standard therapy.

Bottom line: It is common sense that allowing early mobility would help our patients, both physically and mentally. This paper makes it clear that IPOP makes a very real difference. This small study bears additional confirmatory work, but given the level of significance found, the concept will likely be proven.

It does take some extra effort to apply a well-fitted early prosthesis. This typically takes place in the OR. The prosthesis must be easy to remove for wound care and protect the stump from injury while weight-bearing.  It is best done by an orthopedic surgeon and skilled prosthetist at the end of the amputation procedure. 

Hopefully, this concept will catch on to help patients with this potentially devastating procedure recover more quickly and retain their mental health.

Reference: RCT to study the effect of immediate post-operative prosthesis vs. conventional prosthesis on balance & QOL in BK amputees following trauma. AAST 2023, Plenary paper #21.

Abstracts

Coming Up: EAST Scientific Abstract Presentations

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It’s that time of year again! The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma (EAST) Annual Scientific Assembly is just around the corner. And as usual, I have selected a number of the more interesting and intriguing abstracts to analyze here.

I will look at the idea behind each abstract, analyze the research work that went into it, give you my take as to the validity and significance, and provide some comments to the presenter and authors to help prepare them for questions during their presentation.

Here are some of the interesting topics I will be covering:

  • A hard look at trauma research quality
  • Early VTE prophylaxis in severe TBI
  • Whole blood for TBI and shock
  • Cost of whole blood use
  • REBOA
  • Trauma imaging in the elderly
  • Where should trauma patients be intubated?
  • Post-mortem CT scanning
  • Detecting rib fractures with AI
  • Timing of rib fracture analgesia
  • CT imaging of the spine
  • Elderly falls prevention
  • VTE prophylaxis in adolescents
  • TXA
  • Completion angiography
  • Damage control skin closure

Generally, I do not discuss animal, basic science, biomarker or other research that does not have the potential for obvious and immediate impact on clinical trauma care. Occasionally I will make an exception if findings are novel and/or exciting enough to signal the arrival of a new area of research.

We will see if I can get to all of these intriguing abstracts starting next Monday. And if any of my readers have a specific abstract in mind for me to discuss, please email or leave a comment below.

Here are links to the abstracts direct from the EAST website:

Abstracts

The Best Of EAST 2021

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The Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma annual meeting starts in just 2 weeks! Keeping to tradition, I’m going to start reviewing some of the more interesting (to me) abstracts to be presented at the meeting and sharing my thoughts with you.

There are 33 regular abstracts and 17 quick shot abstracts to be presented. I’m going to focus on the regular abstracts, since there will be an opportunity to question the authors (hopefully) at the virtual meeting. Quick shots are a very brief presentation only.

Let me share how I process a batch of abstracts like this. First, I capture the pdf file with all the abstracts and open it in a pdf markup program. Adobe Reader or Acrobat have basic capabilities, but I prefer a more full-featured product so I can scribble notes and stuff on it.

Now, I go through the file looking at titles. Keep in mind I am a clinical trauma surgeon. So right off the bat I will pretty much discard any bench type research. No matter how interesting it may sound, it will be years before it may (or more likely won’t) be clinically relevant. Invariably, I will pay no further attention to these.

If the title, suggests it is an animal study, I may consider it. But probably not. The research idea had better be a very interesting or intriguing one that should definitely stimulate further thought and research. If it’s just making an incremental advance, there won’t be any clinical relevance to humans for a few more years. There are some REBOA abstracts in the current batch that fall into this category. I do keep the research concept in my mind for future consideration when I see related papers, but for now I ignore.

Now, I am left with mostly clinically relevant papers. As I read the title I ask myself:

  • Did I know this already? If I did, I read the intro and conclusion to see if this abstract adds anything different to what I thought I knew. If it does, I’ll read the whole thing and analyze it. But most of the time, there is not enough novelty to keep me interested.
  • Is this truly something new and different? This is a very unusual occurrence. Most work adds incrementally to previous research. But if it really is new and different, I will latch onto this and read it in great detail.
  • Might it refine our approach to certain clinical problems? Could we improve the usual way we take care of our patients? These are of great interest to me. However, remember that no single paper (or certainly abstract) should ever make you change your practice. There are so many exciting things that have been published exactly once that don’t just pan out. Beware the one-hit wonder. And unfortunately, you don’t know it is one until months or years later when the concept has been disproven or no one else has been interested enough to duplicate it.
  • Have the authors used a new approach to tackle a problem? Exploring a new way to look at a specific problem may be generalized to other problems as well. So in this case I will forgive a boring or already known result so I can scrutinize a new research tool.

By now, I’ve cut the number of abstracts roughly in half. That’s still too many to write about. So finally, I have to narrow down the field by ranking in order of my interest level. I fully recognize that my interests will not be necessarily be perfectly aligned with yours. But I do know my audience, and most of you share the same areas of curiosity. Unfortunately, some good abstracts will be ignored. But there is one thing you can do: look over the abstract collection yourself and let me know about specific abstracts you would like to see discussed! I am happy to oblige.

So beginning tomorrow, I’ll post the most interesting EAST abstracts in program book order. I’ll provide the author’s description and my analysis. I will also list some questions that I (and probably you) have that the authors should consider. I always make a point of notifying the authors each day when I post about their abstract so they can study the questions and potentially address them in their virtual presentation.

And as always, if you have questions, suggestions, or abstracts you would like discussed, just reply here or on Twitter. I hope to “see” you at EAST!