emergency room will help to identify occult shock, limit end-organ hypoperfusion, help prevent multiple organ failure, andultimately improve survival. Intensive monitoring, earlyintensive care unit admission, and goal-directed resuscitationare recommended in the elderly trauma patient.Markers for resuscitation, including HR, blood pressure,and urine output, can be unreliable clinical end points in theelderly secondary to baseline hypertension, use of beta-blockers, and pre-existing organ dysfunction. Base deficit andserum lactate levels may be better guides to assess tissueperfusion and cellular oxygenation. Callaway et al18studiednormotensive trauma patients to determine the associationbetween base deficit and serum lactate levels with mortality.The elderly cohort comprised patients 65 years old or older.Patients were included in the study if on presentation SBP was90 mmHg or higher, base deficit and serum lactate weremeasured on admission to the emergency department, andinjury was the result of a blunt trauma mechanism. Overallmortality rate in the elderly cohort was 20%. With risinglactate levels, mortality increased significantly with levels of0 to 2.4 mmol/L associated with 15.4% mortality, 2.5 to 4.0with 23.4%, and greater than 4.0 with 39.6%. Base deficitshowed a similar trend with greater than 0 mEq/L associatedwith 13.7% mortality, 0 to –6 with 27.2%, and less than –6with 39.5%. Younger patients had significantly lower mortalityrates across all groups for lactate and base deficit. The conceptof occult hypoperfusion in the elderly trauma patient is againemphasized and the authors advocate additional clinical trialsto validate the use of base deficit and serum lactate level in thetriage and resuscitation of elderly trauma patients.Pre-existing Medical ConditionsPre-existing medical conditions are associated withworse outcomes in geriatric trauma patients. Grossman et al4examined the relationship of clinical variables and pre-existingmedical conditions on mortality from geriatric trauma ina cohort of 33,781 patients collected from a state traumaregistry. Patients were included in the database with a traumadiagnosis (International Classification of Diseases codes800.00–950.00), death, transfer between institutions, hospitalstay 72 hours or longer, or admission directly to the operatingroom or intensive care unit. Geriatric trauma patients weredefined as age 65 years or older and isolated hip fracturepatients were excluded. The overall mortality was 7.6% at30 days. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used tocontrol for vital signs, GCS, and ISS, effectively isolatingthe pre-existing medical conditions. Hepatic disease, renaldisease, cancer, and congestive heart failure were found tohave the strongest associations with mortality. Perdue et al5had similar findings with pre-existing cardiovascular or liverdisease, renal, or infectious complications and geriatric age(65 years or older) independently predicting late mortality.In addition, patients 65 years or older had twice the mortalityrate of younger patients (16–64 years) as well as a significantly