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: