Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health

Introduction: To assess the ability of the shock index (SI) to predict 28-day mortality in traumatic hemorrhagic shock patients treated in the diaspirin cross-linked hemoglobin (DCLHb) resuscitation clinical trials.

Methods: We used data from two parallel DCLHb traumatic hemorrhagic shock efficacy trials, one in U.S. emergency departments, and one in the European Union prehospital setting to assess the relationship between SI values and 28-day mortality.

Results: In the 219 patients, the mean age was 37 years, 64% sustained a blunt injury, 48% received DCLHb, 36% died, and 88% had an SI>1.0 at study entry. The percentage of patients with an SI>1.0 dropped by 57% (88 to 38%) from the time of study entry to 120 minutes after study resuscitation (p<0.001). Patients with a SI>1.0, 1.4, and 1.8 at any time point were 2.3, 2.7, and 3.1 times, respectively, more likely to die by 28 days than were patients with SI values below these cutoffs (p<0.001).  Similarly, after 120 minutes of resuscitation, patients with a SI>1.0 were 3.9x times more likely to die by 28 days (40 vs. 15%, p<0.001).  Although the distribution of SI values differed based on treatment group, the receiver operator characeristics data showed no difference in SI predictive ability for 28-day mortality in patients treated with DCLHb.

Conclusion: In these traumatic hemorrhagic shock patients, the shock index correlates with 28-day mortality, with higher SI values indicating greater mortality risk. Although DCLHb treatment did alter the distribution of SI values, it did not influence the ability of the SI to predict 28-day mortality. [West J Emerg Med. 2014;15(7):–0.]