Advanced trauma life support 2025: A brief review of updates

Guidelines and practices in trauma care constantly evolve based on evidence available, and every healthcare provider who treats trauma should be up-to-date in trauma-care concepts. The Eleventh Edition of Advanced Trauma Life Support, released in 2025, contains a complete revamp of the foundational principles of acute trauma care, content design, delivery, and training, based on medical and educational evidence. In this edition, a significant update is the emphasis on control of exsanguinating/major haemorrhage (ABCDE to x-ABCDE where x stands for control of exsanguinating haemorrhage in trauma resuscitation. In addition to damage control resuscitation, some of the significant changes include recommendations for permissive hypotension, limiting crystalloids, early transfusion, neuroprotective focus, and modifications in operational principles in spine motion restriction. Some of these conceptual changes with their rationale are briefly described in this review as an update for any healthcare provider involved in trauma resuscitation.