Mast pneumatic trousers: a mechanical device to support blood pressure.

Maintaining the oxygenation of the heart-brain-lung circulation system is vitally important in reducing morbidity and mortality in emergency medicine. Mast pneumatic trousers were developed that compress the abdomen and legs, thus transfusing more than 20 percent of the whole blood volume into the heart-brain-lung circulation. This report consists of the results of treatment of approximately 70 patients whose blood pressures were significantly reduced before application of the trousers. These patients, for the most part, were delivered to the hospital in relatively good clinical condition. Complications with this device have been few. There is a question of pulmonary compromise because of the increased intra-abdominal pressure. Hard data on the number of lives saved are difficult to obtain because of the complexity of the human system in determining which lives would or would not have been saved without long-term studies. However, it can be shown that there is a significant increase in blood pressure with the utilization of such devices. This, then, infers that lives probably were saved in specific patients.