Vox Sanguinis International Forum on the use of prehospital blood products and pharmaceuticals in the treatment of patients with traumatic haemorrhage

Blood products are an essential part of the resuscitation of many trauma patients with severe bleeding. Reducing death from haemorrhage is important since the mortality for patients with traumatic haemorrhagic shock is high (approximately 20–40%), and there are approximately 30,000 preventable civilian deaths due to traumatic haemorrhage per year in the United States alone, with 25,000 of these occurring in the prehospital setting. The total number of preventable deaths due to haemorrhage from traumatic injury worldwide has been estimated to be 1,000,000 per year. Many hospitals have recognized the importance of providing blood products quickly to severely injured and bleeding patients by developing massive transfusion protocols (MTP) whereby a fixed quantity of products can be rapidly obtained from the blood bank and infused shortly after the patient arrives at the hospital. There is a 5% increase in mortality for every minute that blood is not provided to a trauma patient after the MTP has been ordered, which underscores the importance of having blood readily available to these patients...