Classification of patient subgroups
Patients were classified into one of four groups – stable, borderline,
unstable and in-extremis in accordance with criteria developed
during several previous studies by the co-authors of the RCT.17,18 The
classification system is based on clinical parameters in four separate
categories: shock, coagulopathy, hypothermia and soft tissue injuries.
Patients are allocated to a group if they satisfy the equivalent of
three out of the four categories. For further analysis, only the stable
(JHH-S) and borderline (JHH-BL) patients were considered given
that these groups were the focus of the RCT (RCT stable (RCT-S)
and RCT borderline (RCT-BL)). Demographics, injury pattern,
surgical approach (DCO or ETC) and outcomes were compared
between the relevant groups of the JHH and the RCT.
Data are presented as mean standard deviation or percentages.
Statistical analysis was performed by using Fisher’s exact test
for continuous variables and Chi-squared tests for categorical data.
Statistical significance was considered at P < 0.05.