Polytrauma and Severe Injury Treatment - Current Guideline Recommendations

The emergency care of a polytraumatized patient is a medical, logistical, and socio-economic challenge. On the one hand due to the complexity of the life-threatening injuries, and on the other hand due to the need of acting quickly and precisely. Therefore, a number of guidelines, e.g. the latest version of the "S3 guideline on treatment of polytrauma/severe injuries" give recommendations for the initial care of polytraumatized patients. They are of the utmost importance for survival and the restoration of physical functionality.Important recommendations regarding bleeding control, indications and management of emergency anesthesia and airway management, the use of blood products in volume therapy, particularities of traumatic cardiac arrest, possibilities of analgesia as well as the increasing use of devices like sonography, capnography and blood gas analysis are given.Furthermore, indications for an emergency room alarm based on the ABCDE algorithm, type of injury and prehospital procedures are discussed.The goal of this paper is to inform all kind of emergency medicine practitioners about the management of severe injury treatment.