Tactics and general principles in the treatment of polytraumatized disaster victims.

The authors reviewed their experiences of treating masses of victims after disasters in Arzamas, Armenia, and Ethiopia. To handle these vast numbers of victims, local hospitals were reorganized into specialized clinics with appropriate equipment and medical personnel. Some of the patients were evacuated to multispecialized clinics or rear hospitals. A complex of diagnostic and treatment modalities were used on these patients, including intrabone injections, immunoprophylaxis for purulent complications, skin and bone grafting and external fixation systems designed in Russia. The overwhelming majority of the patients was discharged with good results. To prevent common tactical, treatment, and surgical mistakes, it is necessary to improve medical education to train multispecialized teams in disaster medicine prepared to work under extreme conditions.