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Vascular Injuries

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Abstract

Blast-related vascular injury represents an increasingly common injury pattern in both military and civilian trauma populations. It presents unique management challenges, owing to the high incidence of collateral damage, commonly manifesting with devastating soft tissue injury. Nonetheless, sound principles of vascular injury repair guide the conduct of management, including the control of hemorrhage, expeditious restoration of perfusion, reconstruction preferably with autologous conduit, and prevention of compartment syndrome. In this subset of patients, damage control principles are often necessary in the face of conflicting management priorities, warranting the application of temporary vascular shunting with delayed definitive repair. This chapter explores the epidemiology, diagnosis, and clinical management of vascular injury in this challenging patient population.

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Williams, T.K., Clouse, W.D. (2018). Vascular Injuries. In: Galante, J., Martin, M., Rodriguez, C., Gordon, W. (eds) Managing Dismounted Complex Blast Injuries in Military & Civilian Settings. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74672-2_11

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