Orthopedic damages control in the patient with complex lesions

Abstract

The complex management of the politraumatized patient may be optimized by standardized and validated methods using the already well established algorithms. But new concepts appeared during the last years have shown that critically ill patients have better and more significant results if surgical procedures are shortened for the benefice of a precocious transference to an intensive care unit. This notion, acutely contrasting with classical surgical concepts, has been defined as Damage Control Surgery. Kinetics of the physiologic answer to severe lesions has to be taken into account to establish the moment and priorities of the surgical interventions needed in these patients. The methodology of damage control in Orthopedics is characterized by establishing the fracture focus as a temporal primary treatment, to avoid second strikes originated in a systemic inflammatory answer and in conventional complex surgical treatments. This “golden” balance between primary, secondary measures and knowledge on physiopathologic reactions, together with established diagnostics and therapeutic algorithms might be help to improve the outcomes in politraumatized patients. In the current work we made an up-today review of this new method of Damage Control in Orthopedics.