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The term “damage control” was coined by the US Navy during World War II, and was defined as those procedures and skills employed to maintain or restore the watertight integrity, stability, or offensive power in a warship. This military term is used today to describe the management of the surgical equivalent of a sinking ship. The concept was introduced by Stone et al. in 1983 [1] and promulgated by the Ben Taub General group [2]. The fundamentals of damage control surgery (DCS) are to limit the operation to essential interventions, namely, controlling hemorrhage, shunting major vascular injuries, and limiting enteric contamination, in patients who are dying due to the bloody viscous cycle (the lethal triad of hypothermia, coagulopathy, and acidosis) (Fig. 1) [3]. Aborting the operation enables one to return the patient to the surgical intensive care unit (SICU) for resuscitation and correction of the coagulopathy. Once physiologic restoration...
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Stone HH, Strom PR, Mullins RJ (1983) Management of the major coagulopathy with onset during laparotomy. Ann Surg 197:532–535
Burch JM, Ortiz VB, Richardson RJ et al (1992) Abbreviated laparotomy and planned reoperation for critically injured patients. Ann Surg 215:476
Moore EE (1996) Staged laparotomy for the hypothermia, acidosis, and coagulopathy syndrome. Am J Surg 172:405
Wyrzykowski A, Feliciano DV (2008) Trauma damage control. In: Feliciano DV, Mattox KL, Moore EE (eds) Trauma, 6th edn. McGraw-Hill, New York
Vargo DJ, Battistella FD (2001) Abbreviated thoracotomy and temporary chest closure: an application of damage control after thoracic trauma. Arch Surg 136(1):21–24
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Burlew, C.C., Moore, E.E. (2012). Abdominal Trauma, Damage Control. In: Vincent, JL., Hall, J.B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Intensive Care Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00418-6_358
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00418-6_358
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-00417-9
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