Can We Help Stop Bleeding in Badly Injured People

Abstract

Serious bleeding, known as major hemorrhage, is the most common cause of death in people with serious injuries. People with major hemorrhage often have a lower amount of an important protein called fibrinogen in their blood, which makes it more difficult to stop the bleeding. In a big randomized controlled trial called CRYOSTAT 2, we looked at whether giving people extra fibrinogen soon after their injury helped stop bleeding and increased the number of people who survived. We were surprised to find that fibrinogen did not help as much as we expected, and that it may even make some people more likely to die. In this article, we talk about the CRYOSTAT-2 experiment and how it shows we cannot treat all bleeding patients in the same way.