Inflammatory response to trauma: implications for coagulation and resuscitation

Recent studies have changed our understanding of the timing and interactions of the inflammatory processes and coagulation cascade following severe trauma. This review highlights this information and correlates its impact on the current clinical approach for fluid resuscitation and treatment of coagulopathy for trauma patients.

Severe trauma is associated with a failure of multiple biologic emergency response systems that includes imbalanced inflammatory response, acute coagulopathy of trauma, and endovascular glycocalyx degradation with microcirculatory compromise. These abnormalities are all interlinked and related. Recent observations show that after severe trauma: proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses are concomitant, not sequential and resolution of the inflammatory response is an active process, not a passive one. Understanding these interrelated processes is considered extremely important for the development of future therapies for severe trauma in humans.

Traumatic injuries continue to be a significant cause of mortality worldwide. Recent advances in understanding the mechanisms of end-organ failure, and modulation of the inflammatory response has important clinical implications regarding fluid resuscitation and treatment of coagulopathy.