Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Hospitals have a critically important role in the management of mass causality incidents MCI , yet there is little information to assist emergency planners. A significantly limiting factor of a hospital's capability to treat those affected is its surgical capacity. We therefore intended to provide data about the duration and predictors of life saving operations.
The data of 20, predominantly blunt trauma patients recorded in the Trauma Registry of the German-Trauma-Society was retrospectively analyzed to calculate the duration of life-saving operations as well as their predictors.
From 1, patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria 1, operations could be identified as life-saving operations. Acute injuries to the abdomen accounted for The mean cut to suture time was min IQR min.
The mean operation time of min calculated for emergency life-saving surgical operations provides a realistic guideline for the prospective treatment capacity which can be estimated and projected into an actual incident admission capacity.
Knowledge of predictive factors for life-saving emergency operations helps to identify those patients that need most urgent operative treatment in case of blunt MCI. A mass casualty incident MCI is an infrequent event that requires coordinated action under time constraints [ 1 ]. In the last years, beside natural disasters, transportations and structure failure incidents, terrorist bombings have emerged to be a particularly devastating and medically challenging type of a MCI [ 2 , 3 ].
