title: Orthopaedic triage during natural disasters and mass casualties: do scoring systems matter?
abstract: Mass casualty events, either natural disasters or man-made, are associated with extremities injuries. The treating surgeon often faces a challenging decision: can the affected extremity be saved or amputated? The following article will present the author's view on the subject of triage and the use of scoring systems in the decision-making process whether to salvage or amputate an affected extremity. The author will analyse the existing scoring systems and emphasise significance of the regional factors: geographical, cultural and level of health care, as factors playing roles in this process.
authors.affiliation: California Pacific Medical Center, 45 Castro Street, Suite 337, San Francisco, CA 94114, USA. nik@drwolfson.com
authors.forename: Nikolaj
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wolfson
mesh_terms: D000671:Amputation, Surgical; D003469:Culture; D003657:Decision Making; D004190:Disasters; D006801:Humans; D023821:Limb Salvage; D054527:Mass Casualty Incidents; D009985:Orthopedics / Q000379:methods*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D014218:Triage / Q000145:classification*