Early prediction of acute traumatic coagulopathy

The inability to accurately predict acute traumatic coagulopathy (ATC) has been a key factor in the low level of evidence guiding its management. The aim of this study was to develop a tool to accurately identify patients with ATC using pre-hospital variables without the use of pathology or radiological testing.

Retrospective data from the trauma registry on major trauma patients were used to identify variables independently associated with coagulopathy. These variables were clinically evaluated to develop a scoring system to predict ATC, which was prospectively validated in the same setting.

There were 1680 major trauma patients in the derivation dataset, with 151 patients being coagulopathic. Pre-hospital variables independently associated with ATC were entrapment (OR 1.85; 95% CI: 1.12-3.06), temperature (OR 0.60; 95% CI: 0.60-0.72), systolic blood pressure (OR 0.99; 95% CI: 0.98-0.99), abdominal or pelvic content injury (OR 2.0; 95% CI: 1.27-3.12) and pre-hospital chest decompression (OR 4.99; 2.77-8.99). The COAST score was developed, scoring points for entrapment, temperature <35°C, systolic blood pressure < 100 mm Hg, abdominal or pelvic content injury and chest decompression. Prospectively validated using 1225 major trauma patients, a COAST score of ≥ 3 had a specificity of 96.4% with a sensitivity of 60.0%, with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.83 (0.78-0.88).

The COAST score accurately identified a group of patients with ATC using pre-hospital observations. This predictive tool can be used to select patients for inclusion into prospective studies examining management options for ATC. Mortality in these patients is high, potentially improving feasibility of outcome studies.