[Resuscitation and abdominal surgical aspects of damage control surgery]

In multitrauma patients continuous bleeding is one of the major killers. Coagulation defects have been shown to be a primary event and to occur very early in multitrauma patients (acute traumatic coagulopathy). It is enhanced by acidosis, hypothermia and further coagulation disorders in the "bloody vicious cycle". Due to this a new resuscitation practice has been defined; damage control resuscitation, consisting of hypotensive resuscitation (restricted use of crystalloids), haemostatic resuscitation (balanced use of blood components) in combination with surgical haemostatic procedures (damage control surgery).