Vascular trauma and lactate clearance as predictor determining mortality. Case report.

Introduction: The serial measurement of serum lactate is essential for monitoring the therapeutic response of initial resuscitation and damage control in patients with vascular trauma, as well as a predictor of morbidity and mortality. Case report: We present a 25-year-old male patient who suffers trauma due to knife wound in the thorax with vascular injury, in whom a serial measurement of serum lactate, damage control and resuscitation was performed; subsequently, a vascular lesion was diagnosed, and vascular exploration of the subclavian vessels + arteriotomy was carried out due to the finding of vasospasm in the axillary artery with in situ thrombus and subclavian artery raffia. Conclusions: The serial measurement of serum lactate and its rapid clearance in the first hours of the event successfully predicts a low probability of morbidity and mortality despite the characteristics and severity of the trauma. ©2015 The Authors. Published by the International Academy of Sciences, Humanities, and Arts under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.