Pre-Hospital Blood Products for the Care of Bleeding Trauma Patients

Controversy surrounds the administration of blood products to severely traumatized patients before they arrive in the hospital in order to compensate for early blood loss and/or to correct coagulation disturbances that arise shortly after the traumatic event. A number of terrestrial and air rescue services have begun to provide this kind of treatment.

This review is based on articles using the PICO framework, published from January 2001 to January 2021, that were retrieved by a selective search, with structured searching strategies and searching bundles in Medline (OVIDSP), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and Epistemonikos. A demand analysis was carried out on the basis of data from the trauma registry of the German Society of Trauma Surgery (TR-DGU) and practical experience from program development and implementation was provided by the Bundeswehr Hospital Ulm.

The currently available evidence on the pre-hospital administration of blood products in the early treatment of severely injured patients is based largely on retrospective, single-center case series. Two randomized controlled trials (RCTs) concerning the early use of fresh frozen plasma concentrates have yielded partly conflicting results. Three further RCTs on the use of lyophilized plasma (lyplas), lyplas plus erythrocyte concentrate, or whole blood likewise revealed non-uniform effects on short-term and intermediate-term mortality. Our demand analysis based on data from the TR-DGU showed that 300 to 1800 patients per year in Germany could benefit from the pre-hospital administration of blood products. This might be indicated in patients who have systolic hypotension (<100 mmHg) in combination with a suspected or confirmed hemorrhage, as well as pathological shock parameters in the point-of-care diagnostic testing performed on the scene (serum base excess ≤ -2.5 mmol/L and/or serum lactate concentration >4 mmol/L).

The studies that have been published to date yield no clear evidence either for or against the early pre-hospital administration of blood products. Any treatment of this kind should be accompanied by scientific evaluation.