BACKGROUND: This retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data from the PROPPR study describes volatile anesthetic use in severely injured trauma patients undergoing anesthesia.
METHODS: After exclusions, 402 subjects were reviewed of the original 680, and 292 had complete data available for analysis. Anesthesia was not protocolized, so analysis was of contemporary practice.
RESULTS: The small group who received no volatile anesthetic (n = 25) had greater injury burden (Glasgow Coma Scale
CONCLUSION: In this acutely injured trauma population, choice of volatile anesthetic did not appear to influence short-term mortality and morbidity. Subjects who received no volatile were more severely injured with greater mortality, representing hemodynamic compromise where volatile agent was limited until stable. As anesthetic was not protocolized, these findings that choice of specific volatile was not associated with short-term survival require prospective, randomized evaluation
