Incidence and timing of hypothermia in trauma patients undergoing operations.

Hypothermia is a major problem in patients who have sustained trauma. We reviewed the cases of 100 consecutive trauma patients transferred directly to the operating room (OR) from the Emergency Department (ED) in a Level I trauma center. These data suggest that hypothermia in trauma patients has a multifactoral etiology related to the magnitude of injury and that the major T loss occurs in the ED rather than in the OR. Efforts to limit T loss must be instituted during resuscitation in the ED or even in the field