Current concepts in fluid resuscitation for prehospital care of combat casualties

Historically, hemorrhage accounts for the primary cause of death on the battlefield in conventional warfare. In addition, hemorrhage was associated with 85% of potentially survivable deaths in the current conflicts, approximately two-thirds of which were from noncompressible injuries. Future combat casualty care strategies suggest the likelihood of long transport times or significant time delays in evacuation of casualties. In addition, there are logistical limitations to providing large volumes of resuscitation fluid far-forward, and current guidelines do not recommend infusing large volumes of fluid until bleeding is controlled. Since the medic has few options for treating noncompressible injuries short of infusing fluid to maintain a blood pressure, the concept of damage control resuscitation was developed to promote hemostatic resuscitation. Damage control resuscitation recommends limiting the amount of crystalloids or colloids infused and using plasma and other blood products in more optimal ratios for the treatment of severe hemorrhage to improve battlefield survival and to reduce or prevent early and late deleterious sequelae. Taken together, these efforts have important implications towards the development of optimal fluid resuscitation strategies for stabilization of the combat casualty.