Acute Traumatic Coagulopathy

Traumatic coagulopathy is thought to be caused primarily by fluid administration and hypothermia.

A retrospective study was performed to determine whether coagulopathy resulting from the injury itself is a clinically important entity in severely injured patients.

One thousand eight hundred sixty-seven consecutive trauma patients were reviewed, of whom 1,088 had full data sets. Median Injury Severity Score was 20, and 57.7% had an Injury Severity Score > 15; 24.4% of patients had a significant coagulopathy. Patients with an acute coagulopathy had significantly higher mortality (46.0% vs. 10.9%; chi2, p