Page 8 - JSOM Spring 2018

by Allison Esposito, Managing Editor

CASE REPORTS and colleagues, presents the case of a patient with new-onset
diabetes, severe acidosis, hypothermia, and shock who pre-
A case report is a description of an individual patient that can sented to a Role 1 Battalion Aid Station and made a rapid and
document unusual or rare medical occurrences and often rep- full recovery without needing hemodialysis.
resents the first incidence in the identification of new disease
entities. Case series are collections of individual case reports.
Although both case reports and case series are useful for un- IN BRIEF
derstanding the epidemiology of new diseases or conditions, “The Shrail: A Comparison of a Novel Attachable Rail System
they are not generalizable and any correlations may be coinci- With the Current Deployment Operating Table,” by Dilday
dental. Readers should realize that case reports and case series and associates, describes a novel attachable rail system, the
provide anecdotal evidence only.
Shrail, which turns a North Atlantic Treaty Organization litter
into a functional operating table.
In “Military Prehospital Use of Low Titer Group O Whole
Blood,” Warner and colleagues review the care of the first pa-
tient to receive low titer group O whole blood transfusion,
using a new protocol.

Shrail system assembled on North Atlantic Treaty Organization
litter to show compatibility with standard operating room
and operating table attachments.

FOCUS ON REBOA
In “Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta
(REBOA): Introduction,” King states, REBOA “is quickly be-
coming fashionable among civilian and military medical pro-
viders. Balloon occlusion of the aorta is not new to aneurysm
management; however, its use in trauma remains relatively un-
studied and outcomes from REBOA remain entirely unclear.”
In our focus on REBOA this issue, we present two new ar-
ticles and abstracts from four articles that were published in
the JSOM in 2017.

Next, in “Bringing Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Oc-
clusion of the Aorta (REBOA) Closer to the Point of Injury: A
Simulation Study,” Pasley and colleagues investigated whether
independent duty military medical technicians could learn and
Stored low titer O whole blood. perform REBOA correctly and rapidly as assessed by simulation,
with the use of smaller delivery sys tems and wirefree devices.
Snow and colleagues describe a case that demonstrates a ben- Then, the “Feasibility of Battlefield Resuscitative Balloon Oc-
efit from advanced life-saving interventions and critical care clusion of the Aorta” is explored by Ross and Redman, who
skills beyond the required scope of practice of search and res- conclude that “with proper training, nonsurgical providers
cue medical technicians as dictated by relevant instructions, in can properly place REBOA catheters in austere prehospital
“Benefit of Critical Care Flight Paramedic–Trained Search and settings at speeds and with effectiveness similar to those in the
Rescue Corpsmen in Treatment of Severely Injured Aviators.” hospital setting.”

“Challenges of Transport and Resuscitation of a Patient With Finally, four abstracts are presented of articles from 2017 by
Severe Acidosis and Hypothermia in Afghanistan,” by Brazeau Manley, Teeter, Knight, and Fisher and their colleagues.

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