Emerging approaches to pre-hospital hemorrhage control: a narrative review

In the United States, trauma claims the lives of over 150,000 civilians each year. In military settings, trauma and exsanguination result in 50% of combat related deaths. The majority of these deaths result from uncontrolled non-compressible hemorrhage. Non-compressible hemorrhage often results from deep vascular injuries within the torso, however can also occur secondary to penetrating injuries that involve the extremities. Given the high mortality rates for non-compressible hemorrhage, rapid and effective management of patients suffering from hemorrhage is essential to good patient outcomes. Consequently, there has been increasing interest in solutions for point-of-injury hemorrhage control in trauma and military medicine. Undoubtedly there is a great need for prehospital hemostatic interventions that can be deployed by trained and untrained personnel. Since 2001, various hemostatic agents have been developed, each with its advantages based upon the type and severity of injury, wound size, wound location, accessibility to injury site, and the coagulation status of the patient. These agents are often used in the military setting as a temporizing measure prior to definitive therapy and include techniques such as resuscitative endovascular balloon occlusion of the aorta (REBOA) and bioengineered agents including ResQFoam, RevMedx’s XSTAT, Tranexamic acid (TXA), and QuikClot Combat Gauze (QCG). Here, we review the indications, composition, technique, efficacy, and outcomes of these hemostatic agents.