What is hemorrhagic shock?

I believe that everyone must be relatively unfamiliar with hemorrhagic shock. In fact, hemorrhagic shock is a rare disease. However, we can still learn more about hemorrhagic shock, which will help increase our knowledge. The occurrence of hemorrhagic shock will bring great harm to patients. Hemorrhagic shock is generally prone to occur in infants and young children. Let us introduce hemorrhagic shock in detail below.

It is a rare disease characterized by acute onset of severe shock, encephalopathy and other symptoms in previously healthy children, leading to death or extremely serious neurological damage. It mainly occurs in infants between 3 and 8 months old (average age is 5 months), but it has also been reported in 15-year-olds.

Most children have prodromal fever, upper respiratory tract symptoms, vomiting and diarrhea. The main clinical features are acute onset of encephalopathy (manifested by convulsions, coma and decreased muscle tone) and severe shock. Other common clinical features include high fever (up to 43.9°C, rectal temperature), disseminated intravascular coagulation, cerebral edema, blood in the stool, metabolic acidosis, elevated liver transaminases, acute renal failure, thrombocytopenia and decreased hematocrit. Primary pulmonary and myocardial involvement is rare. Laboratory tests often show leukocytosis, hypoglycemia, hyperkalemia, but normal blood ammonia. Bacteriological and viral cultures are negative.

Treatment is entirely supportive, with intravenous infusion of isotonic fluids and blood products (up to 300 ml/kg) plus vasoconstrictors (such as dopamine, epinephrine) necessary to maintain circulation. Patients with increased intracranial pressure due to cerebral edema require endotracheal intubation and hyperventilation, and disseminated intravascular coagulation is often further exacerbated despite the use of fresh frozen plasma.

In the above article, we introduced what hemorrhagic shock is. We know that hemorrhagic shock is a relatively rare disease. Above, we introduced in detail the clinical manifestations and treatment methods of hemorrhagic shock.