Triage in the trauma bay with the Focused Abdominal Sonography for Trauma (FAST) examination

Bedside ultrasonography has been applied to the evaluation of blunt trauma patients for over a decade. The Focused Abdominal Sonography for Trauma (FA ST) examination has been used to successfully triage blunt trauma patients. Although not traditionally thought to be as useful in penetrating trauma p atients, ultrasound can help determine the extent of injury especially of t he heart. We present two cases of multiple-stabbing victims who arrived at our Level I trauma center at the same time, when our trauma system was part icularly overburdeued by multiple consecutive traumas. The FAST examination helped ns to accurately determine which of the two patients required opera tive intervention first, despite that patient's appearance of relative hemo dynamic stability in comparison to the other stabbing victim. (C) 2001 Else vier Science Inc.