The impact of early thromboelastography directed therapy in trauma resuscitation

BACKGROUND: Conventional coagulation tests do not provide an accurate representation of the complex nature of trauma induced coagulopathy. Thrombelastography provides a prompt global overview of all dynamic sequential aspects of trauma induced coagulopathy. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of using thrombelastography on blood products utilization, crystalloids utilization, hospital, and intensive care using length of stay, and cost savings. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed 134 patients (May of 2012 to February of 2015) meeting Class I trauma activation. Outcome data was compared between two groups: patients prior to thrombelastography implementation (n = 87) and patients with thrombelastography guided trauma resuscitation (n = 47). Blood product usage was compared for three time periods: first 4 h, the next 20 h, and first 24 h. RESULTS: For the first 24 h of treatment, patients with thrombelastography guided trauma resuscitation had lower packed red blood cells (p = 0.0022) and fresh frozen plasma (p = 0.0474), but higher jumbo pack platelets (p = 0.0476) utilization when compared to the patients prior to thrombelastography implementation. There was no statistical significant difference in the utilization of crystalloids for any of the three time intervals. Patients with thrombelastography guided trauma resuscitation had a shorter hospital length of stay (p = 0.0011) and intensive care unit length of stay (p = 0.0059) than the patients prior to thrombelastography implementation. Cost savings in blood products transfusion were most pronounced in patients with penetrating injuries. DISCUSSION: Using visco-elastic tests to guide blood transfusion was first used for liver transplant patients and then applied to cardiovascular surgery and trauma. Similar to other studies, this study showed using visco-elastic tests for trauma patietns corresponded to an overall reduction in the use of packed red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma during the first 24 hours of resuscitation. In addition, this study showed using visco-elastic tests corresponded to a significant reduction in both hospital and intensive care unit length of stay. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that Thrombelastography guided trauma resuscitation decreases the overall transfusion requirements of packed red blood cells and fresh frozen plasma. However, given the nature of under-recognized jumbo pack platelets dysfunction in the conventional laboratory parameters, jumbo pack platelets utilization is higher when following Thrombelastography directed resuscitation. The utilization of Thrombelastography corresponded to a reduction in hospital length of stay, intensive care unit length of stay and cost of transfused blood products. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13049-017-0443-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.