Community Research Collaboration Creates Better System for Treating Trauma Patients

Presented by Notre Dame Research

Trauma, or any kind of severe physical injury, continues to be today’s leading cause of death for people 46 and younger in the United States. In 2007, doctors Scott Thomas and Mark Walsh of Memorial Hospital in South Bend were looking for a better way to treat trauma patients who arrived in the emergency room with excessive bleeding. Their search eventually led to a translational research collaboration with the W. M. Keck Center for Transgene Research at the University of Notre Dame and the development of a new method for treating trauma patients.

Upon arrival to an ER, about 25 percent to 35 percent of seriously injured trauma patients have excessive bleeding, or coagulopathy, without clotting. Traditionally, coagulopathy could be treated with fluid resuscitation, but Thomas, chief of trauma services for Beacon Health Systems, and Walsh, an ER physician, knew that a blood replacement product — like platelets, plasma or cryoprecipitate — would be a better treatment option.