Acute traumatic coagulopathy: clinical characterization and mechanistic investigation

Trauma remains the leading cause of death and morbidity worldwide and bleeding is the primary reason for this mortality. Over the past 11 years there has been a paradigm shift in our understanding of coagulopathy after trauma. Specifically its incidence, biological drivers, clinical sequelae have been elucidated. From this understanding a concurrent change in resuscitation practices has occurred. This manuscript will review the history of resuscitation after injury, the discovery and clinical and biological characterization of acute traumatic coagulopathy and the changes in resuscitation practices aimed at combating coagulopathy and inflammatory perturbation after trauma. Finally it will discuss the ongoing state of the science and suggest topics for continued biological and clinical study.