2015 Holiday Party

Thanks to all that braved the weather on Tuesday evening to celebrate 17 years of Trauma Research!

Presentation at the Eleventh World Congress on Brain Injury

Congratulations to Dr. Kim Bjugstad for her work entitled “Oxidation-reduction potential (ORP) as a rapid, easy, and reliable biomarker for traumatic brain injury” being accepted to the Eleventh World Congress on Brain Injury, to be held March 3-6, 2016, in the Hague, the Netherlands.

Research to be presented at the SFRBM conference this week!

Sending best wishes to Dr. Shifra Sela and her team as they travel to Boston to present their study describing oxidative stress induced by one hemodialysis session at the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine conference this Thursday.

New manuscript on cerebral salt wasting

Congratulations to Jan Leonard and team for publishing a new study on cerebral salt wasting (CSW), published in Scandanivan Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation, and Emergency Medicine last week.

Characterized by hyponatremia and hypovolemia, CSW is an electrolyte imbalance with nebulous symptoms and diagnostic criteria. This systematic review study aimed to review the literature on CSW within the TBI population to report the incidence and timing of CSW after TBI, examine outcomes, and summarize the biochemical changes in patients who developed CSW.

The study found incidence of CSW varied between 0.8 – 34.6 %. The populations studied were heterogeneous and the criteria used to define hyponatremia and CSW varied. Though believed to play a role in the development of CSW, increased levels of natriuretic peptides in patients diagnosed with CSW were not consistently reported.The study findings findings reinforce the elusiveness of the CSW diagnosis and the need for strict and consistent diagnostic criteria.

See you at the International Stroke Conference!

We are excited to announce we will be presenting one podium presentation and five poster presentations at the International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles, CA between February 17 – 19. See you there!

Symptomatic Intracranial Hemorrhage Rates and Intravenous Tissue Plasminogen Activator Treatment Time Windows: Does Treatment Window Make a Difference? Wagner J, Orlando A, Fanale C, Whaley M, McCarthy K, Jensen J, Bar-Or D. International Stroke Conference; February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.

Intraarterial Treatment for Acute Ischemic Stroke due to Dissection: Retrospective Series of 24 Cases. Jensen J, Salottolo K, McCarthy K, Frei D, Loy D, Wagner J, Whaley M, Bar­-Or D. International Stroke Conference; February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.

Time is Brain: Standardized Neuro-Interventional Thrombectomy Protocols lead to Faster Recanalization Times. Frei D, Caputo LM, McCarthy K, Salottolo K, Bar-Or D. International Stroke Conference; February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.

Pre-mixing tPA: Moving Past Gestalt. McCarthy K, Caputo LM, Whaley M, Fanale C, Bar-Or D. International Stroke Conference; February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.

Intraarterial Treatment for Acute Ischemic Stroke: Analysis of Outcomes of Dissection vs. Non­Dissection Mechanism in 445 patients. Jensen J, Salottolo K, McCarthy L, Loy D, Frei D, Wagner J,  Whaley M, Bar-­Or D. International Stroke Conference; February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.

Impact of Transfer Status into a Comprehensive Stroke Center on Outcomes among Intra-Arterial Therapy Patients. Frei D, Leonard J, Jensen J, Whaley M, McCarthy K, Wagner J, Bar-Or D. International Stroke Conference; February 2016, Los Angeles, CA.

New publication: The Found Down Patient

Congratulations to partner Dr. Matthew Carrick, and collaborators from the The Western Trauma Association Multicenter Trials Committee, for their most recent publication, entitled “The found down patient: A Western Trauma Association multicenter study.”

The article will be published in the upcoming edition of the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, and is currently available ahead of publication on Pubmed.

New publication: Management of patients with extra-axial mass lesion and GCS 3

Prognosis in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 3 is poor, raising concern regarding the utility of aggressive operative neurosurgical management.

We are excited to publish a study describing outcomes in a propensity matched population with TBI and GCS3 treated with operative neurosurgical procedures of craniotomy or craniectomy (CRANI) in Injury this month! Of 541 patients treated over five years and across three trauma centers, we found survival was achieved in 65% of patients that underwent surgical intervention for subdural and epidural haematoma, despite a presenting GCS of 3, demonstrating prompt operative neurosurgical management of mass lesion is warranted for selected patients with a GCS of 3, contributing to a significant 4-fold survival benefit. In the absence of mass lesion the effect of immediate neurosurgery on outcomes is inconclusive.

Read the full article here.

Abstract to be presented at the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine!

We are excited to announce we will be presenting our findings on the following study at the Society for Redox Biology and Medicine: “A new method to assess oxidative stress changes induced by one hemodialysis session.” Our poster presentation will take place on Thursday, November 19, between 4:15 and 6:45 at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts.

New publication: Lights and siren use in EMS

We are excited our multi-center study examining the frequency and precision of lights and siren use in metro Denver and Colorado Springs is now available. Published in Prehospital Emergency Care, the study found that of the nearly 20% of patients transported with L&S, less than a quarter warranted the high-risk response, as measured by the receipt of a time critical hospital intervention within 15 minutes of hospital arrival. The study suggests an opportunity for further reduction of L&S transports in trauma patients. Read more about the study here.

Trauma Research at the AAST

Thanks to all that stopped by our posters and podium presentations at the 74th Annual Meeting of the AAST and Clinical Congress of Acute Care Surgery last week – it was a great conference!