Europe Issues New Blueprint for Treating Life-Threatening Blood Vessel Injuries
European surgeons have published the first comprehensive clinical guidelines for managing vascular trauma across all body regions, establishing 105 evidence-based recommendations to standardize care. The guidelines matter to hospital administrators and health systems because they provide a clear roadmap for trauma protocols, potentially reducing variation in outcomes and improving survival rates for patients with severe bleeding injuries.
Originaltitel: Editor's Choice - European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) 2025 Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management of Vascular Trauma
<p>Objective: The European Society for Vascular Surgery (ESVS) has developed clinical practice guidelines for the care of patients with vascular trauma with the aim of assisting physicians in selecting the optimal management strategy.</p><p>Methods: The guidelines are based on scientific evidence completed with expert opinion. By summarising and evaluating the best available evidence, recommendations for the evaluation and treatment of patients have been formulated. The recommendations are graded according to the ESVS evidence grading system, where the strength (class) of each recommendation is graded from Ito III, and the letters A to C mark the level of evidence.</p><p>Results: A total of 105 recommendations have been issued on the following topics: general principles for vascular trauma care and resuscitation including technical skill sets, bleeding control and restoration of perfusion, graft materials, and imaging; management of vascular trauma in the neck, thoracic aorta and thoracic outlet, abdomen, and upper and lower extremities; post-operative considerations after vascular trauma; and paediatric vascular trauma. In addition, unresolved vascular trauma issues and the patients' perspectives are discussed.</p><p>Conclusion: The ESVS clinical practice guidelines provide the most comprehensive, up to date, evidence based advice to clinicians on the management of vascular trauma. Article history: Received 22 November 2024, Accepted 9 December 2024, Available online 13 January 2025 (c) 2024 The Authors.</p><p>Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Society for Vascular Surgery. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC- ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).</p>