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Crush Injury and Extremity Compartment Syndromes

  • Soft Tissue Injuries (C Brown, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

The purposes of this review are to define crush injury and crush syndrome and describe how it relates to extremity compartment syndrome. This review will also describe surgical interventions required once compartment syndrome has been identified and discuss the outcomes and complications of both timely and delayed surgical management.

Recent Findings

The management of crush syndrome has evolved to push aggressive fluid resuscitation as early as feasible, including into the field. Developments regarding compartment syndrome are primarily exploring new tools to facilitate the early identification of compartment syndrome.

Summary

Two important and clinically relevant sequela of a crushing traumatic injury are crush syndrome and compartment syndrome. The outcomes of both syndromes are greatly improved with early recognition and treatment. There are several different clinical and diagnostic ways to identify compartment syndrome that can be tailored to the clinical setting; however, surgical intervention to release the compartments should be performed immediately once there is a high suspicion as waiting can lead to devastating consequences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Nathaniel Lee, Jill Peysha & Paula Ferrada

  2. VCU Surgery Trauma, Critical Care and Emergency Surgery, PO Box 980454, Richmond, VA, 23298-0454, USA

    Paula Ferrada

  3. West Hospital, 15th Floor, East Wing 1200 E. Broad St., Richmond, VA, 23298, USA

    Paula Ferrada

Authors
  1. Nathaniel Lee
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  2. Jill Peysha
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  3. Paula Ferrada
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Correspondence to Paula Ferrada.

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The authors declare no conflicts of interest relevant to this manuscript.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Soft Tissue Injuries

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Lee, N., Peysha, J. & Ferrada, P. Crush Injury and Extremity Compartment Syndromes. Curr Trauma Rep 4, 284–288 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40719-018-0141-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40719-018-0141-3

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