The Damage Control Surgery (DCS) Concept: Life-saving Surgical Strategy in the Field

With the beginning of the „Global War on Terror“ and altered use of high-velocity, long-barrelled ammunition or “IED” (Improvised Explosive Devices) the complexity of wounds changed dramatically. Damage Control Surgery (DCS) is an useful salvage strategy for the most critically injured patients. Conceptually, this approach to individual patients can be extrapolated to situations such as military field surgery, civilian mass casualty events and longrange transfers from rural areas. DCS, as originally described, was a three-phase-team approach to maximal injury abdominal trauma. This pragmatic approach to rapid surgery and physilogical stabilization without initial anatomic reconstruction has found favour with other
specialities – thoracic surgery, neurosurgery and orthopaedic surgery. The aim of the present article is to analyse the modern literature of DCS with special focus on DCS-standards of surgical specialities within the German military.