NTI to grant $2.8 million to promising trauma studies

The National Trauma Institute (NTI), a non-profit organization dedicated to funding trauma research in the United States, will grant $2.8 million to promising trauma studies. In its second national request for proposals, NTI seeks rigorous clinical studies, especially those addressing hemorrhage, intensive care, trauma systems or pre-hospital care.

Pre-proposals must be submitted by July 23, 2010 and may outline clinical or translational research involving either single or multiple centers. For complete submission guidelines, visit: www.nationaltraumainstitute.org/research/funding_opportunities.html.

Half of the funding is designated for studies related to non-compressible hemorrhage. Bleeding from extremity wounds stops with applied pressure, but 15 percent of battle injuries in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters are to the torso, where applying pressure is not an option.  We must develop field-expedient techniques for non-surgeons to use in emergency situations.

Other priorities include effective resuscitation strategies, new treatments for shock, better understanding of the coagulopathy of trauma, the elimination of hospital acquired infections, airway and ventilation management strategies for the injured, and battlefield and pre-hospital care and communication.

"We urgently need funding for trauma research that leads to enhanced technologies and practices," said NTI's Science Committee Chairperson Peggy Knudson, MD, FACS and Professor of Surgery, UCSF. "More than 37,000 soldiers have been injured and almost 5,500 have died in the current wars. At home, injury kills more than 179,000 Americans and accounts for over $400 billion in health care costs annually." Trauma is the number one killer of Americans aged 1 through 44, yet federal funding to research this urgent public health problem is extremely inadequate.