Toward Reduction of Post-Hospital Admission Death Rate Caused by Acute Traumatic Aortic Tear.

Background: Terminology and classifications are the vehicles by which pathologic conditions are identified and understood. It is critically important for the patient admitted with suspected blunt thoracic aortic injury that admitting physicians have a thorough knowledge of acute traumatic aortic tear and its natural history.

Objectives: The objectives of this review were as follows: (1) to introduce a pathology-based terminology and classification of acute traumatic aortic injuries that unambiguously defines each, and (2) to emphasize the clinical relevance of acute traumatic tear to post-hospital admission deaths in blunt thoracoabdominally injured patients.

Emergency imaging after a mass casualty incident: role of the radiology department during training for and activation of a disaster management plan.

In the setting of mass casualty incidents (MCIs), hospitals need to divert from normal routine to delivering the best possible care to the largest number of victims. This should be accomplished by activating an established hospital disaster management plan (DMP) known to all staff through prior training drills. Over the recent decades, imaging has increasingly been used to evaluate critically ill patients.