A comparison of base deficit and vital signs in the early assessment of patients with penetrating trauma in a high burden setting.

Introduction: An assessment of physiological status is a key step in the early assessment of trauma patients with implications for triage, investigation and management. This has traditionally been done using vital signs. Previous work from large European trauma datasets has suggested that base deficit (BD) predicts clinically important outcomes better than vital signs (VS).

Haemobilia following blunt liver injury.

Blunt liver trauma is commonly managed by non-operative measures. We report a case of an American Association for the Surgery of Trauma grade III liver injury and its complications, successfully managed by a combination of minimally invasive interventions.