Acute Compartment Syndrome
Although fracture is the most common cause of acute compartment syndrome, clinicians should maintain a high clinical suspicion for other causes.
Emergency Medicine. 2017 March;49(3):106-115 | 10.12788/emed.2017.0014
March 7, 2017|Emergency Medicine
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Given the difficulty in establishing the diagnosis by physical examination findings, the emergency physician (EP) should check and monitor compartment pressures when considering the diagnosis of acute compartment syndrome. In patients with acute compartment syndrome, delayed fasciotomies lead to poor outcomes and a 10-fold increase in surgical complications, such as infection and renal failure.35
Although traumatic fractures are the most common cause of acute compartment syndrome, EPs must also recognize that obtundation, intubation, coagulopathies, and seemingly minor traumas all can potentially cause or lead to acute compartment syndrome.
