Alfred Health News

One-in-three major trauma patients bleed out because their blood won't clot.  Alfred researchers are hoping to change that.

Major trauma patients who sustain significant blood loss may one day have an increased chance of survival if research into clotting progresses as Alfred researchers hope.

Developing a better understanding of why blood changes, and doesn't clot in some critically injured patients, could be the key to stemming the flow.

Alfred Emergency Physician, Dr Dev Mitra, said that major trauma mortality is normally around 10 per cent but, when a patient requires four or five units of donor blood, their chance of survival reduces significantly.

"One-third of our major trauma patients, who present with significant blood loss, don't make it," Dev said.

"One of the greatest hurdles we face in these patients is that they become coagulopathic - their blood won't clot.

"We think this coagulopathy starts at the scene of the trauma, and by the time they reach us, they've lost a lot of blood.  We transfuse them but, if the blood won't clot, they bleed out.  It becomes a vicious cycle."

Dev said the NHMRC funded research is currently focussing on the development of a system to predict which patients are likely to be coagulopathic - a tool is already being trialled. 

"We have multiple means of managing coagulopathy, but they have side-effects, are expensive can be in short supply like all blood products," Dev said.

"If we can measure a patient's level of coagulation, on hospital arrival, we can start treatment to combat it immediately.

"Once we can identify who these high-risk patients are, we'll begin trialling different approaches to bring the mortality rate down."

"Even at The Alfred, which houses the busiest trauma centre in Australia, it could take up to five years to gather measurable data but, ultimately, we hope to save some patients we previously couldn't."