Surgical Care Through a Community Free Clinic-Ambulatory Surgical Center Partnership.

Background: Disparities secondary to underinsurance present throughout the surgical care continuum. Community free clinics are uniquely capable to provide health care services to the medically underserved, but surgery often falls outside their scope of care.

Methods: Retrospective chart review was conducted on consecutive community free clinic patients receiving free surgical services via referral to a partnering ambulatory surgery center between March 2016 and September 2021.

Review of machine learning for optical imaging of burn wound severity assessment.

Significance: Over the past decade, machine learning (ML) algorithms have rapidly become much more widespread for numerous biomedical applications, including the diagnosis and categorization of disease and injury.

Aim: Here, we seek to characterize the recent growth of ML techniques that use imaging data to classify burn wound severity and report on the accuracies of different approaches.

Approach: To this end, we present a comprehensive literature review of preclinical and clinical studies using ML techniques to classify the severity of burn wounds.

Engaging Underrepresented Youth: Remote Transition of the Health Career Collaborative Program.

Introduction: Pipeline programs can help increase diversity in health care by engaging underrepresented minority groups to pursue higher education and training in medical fields. Here we describe the implementation of Health Career Collaborative, a pipeline program designed to connect high school students with health care professionals, and the transition to remote delivery of the curriculum.

Methods: This study is a retrospective, descriptive observational study where the baseline characteristics of participating students were evaluated via preparticipation surveys.

Educational assessment of intrathoracic and extrathoracic surgical stabilization of rib fractures.

Background: Surgical stabilization of rib fractures (SSRF) is being done with increased frequency and new advances. Intrathoracic SSRF is a new less invasive approach compared to the traditional extrathoracic plating procedure. Educational assessment can be done through descriptive analysis of learning curves with operation time used as a proxy measurement for learning.

The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Burn Clinic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to anxiety and fears for the general public. It is unclear how the behavior of people with acute burns and the services available to them has changed during the pandemic. The aim of our observational study was to evaluate our clinic's experience with patients presenting with burns during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic and determine if delays in presentation and healthcare delivery exist within our burn population.

Blunt Trauma Mortality: Does Trauma Center Level Matter?

Introduction: Trauma centers have improved outcomes compared to nontrauma centers when caring for injured patients. A multicenter report found blunt trauma patients treated at American College of Surgeons' Level I trauma centers have improved survival compared to Level II centers. In a subsequent multicenter study, Level II centers had improved survival in all trauma patients.

Coaching for impact: successful implementation of a multi-national, multi-institutional synchronous research course in Ethiopia.

Purpose: Under the American College of Surgeons' Operation Giving Back, several US institutions collaborated with a teaching and regional referral hospital in Ethiopia to develop a surgical research curriculum.

Methods: A virtual, interactive, introductory research course which utilized a web-based classroom platform and live educational sessions via an online teleconferencing application was implemented. Surgical and public health faculty from the US and Ethiopia taught webinars and led breakout coaching sessions to facilitate participants' project development.

Alcohol is not associated with increased mortality in adolescent traumatic brain injury patients.

Purpose: Compared to adults, there is a paucity of data regarding the association of a positive alcohol screen (PAS) and outcomes in adolescent patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). We hypothesize adolescent TBI patients with a PAS on admission to have increased mortality compared to patients with a negative alcohol screen.

Methods: The 2017 Trauma Quality Improvement Program database was queried for patients aged 13-17 years presenting with a TBI and serum alcohol screen.

Vices-paradox in trauma: Positive alcohol and drug screens associated with decreased mortality.

Background: Improved survival in trauma patients with acute alcohol intoxication has been previously reported. The effect of illegal and controlled substances on mortality is less clear. We hypothesized that alcohol, illegal and controlled substances are each independently associated with lower odds of mortality in adult trauma patients.

No Difference in Morbidity or Mortality Between Octogenarians and Other Geriatric Burn Trauma Patients.

Background: Geriatric burn trauma patients (age ≥65 years) have a 5-fold higher mortality rate than younger adults. With the population of the US aging, the number of elderly burn and trauma patients is expected to increase. A past study using the National Burn Repository revealed a linear increase in mortality for those >65 years old.

Injury and Mortality Profiles in Level II and III Trauma Centers.

Background: While the benefit of admission to trauma centers compared to non-trauma centers is well-documented and differences in outcomes between Level-I and Level-II trauma centers are well-studied, data on the differences in outcomes between Level-II trauma centers (L2TCs) and Level-III trauma centers (L3TCs) are scarce.

Objectives: We sought to compare mortality risk between patients admitted to L2TCs and L3TCs, hypothesizing no difference in mortality risk for patients treated at L3TCs compared to L2TCs.

Methods: A retrospective analysis of the 2016 Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP) database was performed.

Octogenarians with blunt splenic injury: not all geriatrics are the same.

Geriatric trauma patients (GTP) (age ≥ 65 years) with blunt splenic injury (BSI) have up to a 6% failure rate of non-operative management (NOM). GTPs failing NOM have a similar mortality rate compared to GTPs managed successfully with NOM. However, it is unclear if this remains true in octogenarians (aged 80-89 years).

Sternotomy for Hemorrhage Control in Trauma.

Background: Little is known about the injuries, mechanisms, and outcomes in trauma patients undergoing sternotomy for hemorrhage control (SHC). The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of mortality for SHC and provide a descriptive analysis of the use of SHC in trauma. We hypothesize blunt trauma is associated with higher mortality compared with penetrating trauma among trauma patients requiring SHC.

Ground-Level Falls at Skilled Nursing Facilities Are Associated With More Serious Lower Extremity Injuries Compared With Home.

Ground-level falls (GLFs) are the number one cause of injury and death in the older adult population. We compared injury profiles of GLFs at SNFs to those at homes, hypothesizing that GLFs at SNFs would lead to higher risks for serious (AIS ≥ 3) traumatic brain injury (TBI) and lower extremity (LE) injuries compared to GLFs at home. The 2015-2016 Trauma Quality Improvement Program was used to compare patients sustaining GLFs at home and SNFs.

Trends 10 years after burn injury: A Burn Model System National Database study.

Background: The Burn Specific Health Scale-Brief (BSHS-B) evaluates 9 aspects of health and has been validated globally. Existing reports typically focus on outcomes shortly after injury. The purpose of this study is to determine whether quality of life remains a concern for burn survivors ten years after-injury.

Goal-directed Hemostatic Resuscitation of Trauma-induced Coagulopathy: A Pragmatic Randomized Clinical Trial Comparing a Viscoelastic Assay to Conventional Coagulation Assays.

Background: Massive transfusion protocols (MTPs) have become standard of care in the management of bleeding injured patients, yet strategies to guide them vary widely. We conducted a pragmatic, randomized clinical trial (RCT) to test the hypothesis that an MTP goal directed by the viscoelastic assay thrombelastography (TEG) improves survival compared with an MTP guided by conventional coagulation assays (CCA).

Methods: This RCT enrolled injured patients from an academic level-1 trauma center meeting criteria for MTP activation.

Overwhelming tPA release, not PAI-1 degradation, is responsible for hyperfibrinolysis in severely injured trauma patients.

Background: Trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC) is associated with a fourfold increased risk of mortality. Hyperfibrinolysis is a component of TIC, but its mechanism is poorly understood. Plasminogen activation inhibitor (PAI-1) degradation by activated protein C has been proposed as a mechanism for deregulation of the plasmin system in hemorrhagic shock, but in other settings of ischemia, tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) has been shown to be elevated.

Combat: Initial Experience with a Randomized Clinical Trial of Plasma-Based Resuscitation in the Field for Traumatic Hemorrhagic Shock.

The existing evidence shows great promise for plasma as the first resuscitation fluid in both civilian and military trauma. We embarked on the Control of Major Bleeding After Trauma (COMBAT) trial with the support of the Department of Defense to determine if plasma-first resuscitation yields hemostatic and survival benefits. The methodology of the COMBAT study represents not only 3 years of development work but also the integration of nearly two decades of technical experience with the design and implementation of other clinical trials and studies.

Exploring ethical conflicts in emergency trauma research: the COMBAT (Control of Major Bleeding after Trauma) study experience.

Background: Up to 25% of severely injured patients develop trauma-induced coagulopathy. To study interventions for this vulnerable population for whom consent cannot be obtained easily, the Food and Drug Administration issued regulations for emergency research with an exception from informed consent (ER-EIC). We describe the community consultation and public disclosure (CC/PD) process in preparation for an ER-EIC study, namely the Control Of Major Bleeding After Trauma (COMBAT) study.

Hyperfibrinolysis, physiologic fibrinolysis, and fibrinolysis shutdown: the spectrum of postinjury fibrinolysis and relevance to antifibrinolytic therapy.

Background: Fibrinolysis is a physiologic process maintaining patency of the microvasculature. Maladaptive overactivation of this essential function (hyperfibrinolysis) is proposed as a pathologic mechanism of trauma-induced coagulopathy. Conversely, the shutdown of fibrinolysis has also been observed as a pathologic phenomenon.

A principal component analysis of postinjury viscoelastic assays: clotting factor depletion versus fibrinolysis.

Introduction: The mechanisms driving trauma-induced coagulopathy (TIC) remain to be defined, and its therapy demands an orchestrated replacement of specific blood products. Thrombelastography (TEG) is a tool to guide the TIC multicomponent therapy. Principal component analysis (PCA) is a statistical approach that identifies variable clusters; thus, we hypothesize that PCA can identify specific combinations of TEG-generated values that reflect TIC mechanisms.

Activated clotting time of thrombelastography (T-ACT) predicts early postinjury blood component transfusion beyond plasma.

Introduction: Rapid thrombelastography (rTEG) has been advocated as a point-of-care test to manage trauma-induced coagulopathy. rTEG activated clotting time (T-ACT) results become available much sooner than other rTEG values, thus offering an attractive tool to guide blood component transfusion in a hemorrhagic shock. We hypothesize that patients with a prolonged T-ACT require replacement of platelets (Plts) and cryoprecipitate (Cryo) in addition to plasma to correct trauma-induced coagulopathy.

Mesenteric lymph diversion abrogates 5-lipoxygenase activation in the kidney following trauma and hemorrhagic shock.

Background: Early acute kidney injury (AKI) following trauma is associated with multiorgan failure and mortality. Leukotrienes have been implicated both in AKI and in acute lung injury. Activated 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) colocalizes with 5-LO-activating protein (FLAP) in the first step of leukotriene production following trauma and hemorrhagic shock (T/HS).

Temporal trends of postinjury multiple-organ failure: still resource intensive, morbid, and lethal.

Background: While the incidence of postinjury multiple-organ failure (MOF) has declined during the past decade, temporal trends of its morbidity, mortality, presentation patterns, and health care resources use have been inconsistent. The purpose of this study was to describe the evolving epidemiology of postinjury MOF from 2003 to 2010 in multiple trauma centers sharing standard treatment protocols.

Methods: "Inflammation and Host Response to Injury Collaborative Program" institutions that enrolled more than 20 eligible patients per biennial during the 2003 to 2010 study period were included.