Fibrinogen in the Initial Resuscitation of Severe Trauma (FiiRST)

Overview

Trauma is the leading cause of death in people 44 years of age or younger. After major trauma, such as following high-speed motor vehicle collision, bleeding coupled with clotting defects is responsible for most of deaths in the first hours of hospital admission. Of note, these bleeding-related deaths are potentially preventable. Accordingly, the initial in-hospital management of severely injured patients focuses on stopping bleeding, replacing blood loss and correcting clotting defects. Recently, animal and human research demonstrated that one of the major clotting defects following injury and bleeding is the drop in blood levels of fibrinogen (a clotting factor), which is detected on hospital admission in severely injured patients. These low fibrinogen levels are associated with increased blood transfusion and death. However, in North America, the standard of care for replacing low fibrinogen requires the use of cryoprecipitate, which is a frozen blood product with long preparation time, and similarly to other blood products, carries the risk of viral transmission and transfusion complications. Alternately, many Europeans countries where cryoprecipitate has been withdrawn from the market due to safety concerns, use fibrinogen concentrate. Fibrinogen concentrate undergoes pathogen inactivation, which is a process to eliminate the risk of transmitting viruses, bacteria and parasites, is likely a safer and faster alternative to cryoprecipitate. In Canada, fibrinogen concentrate is licensed for congenital low fibrinogen only. Although preliminary data suggest that fibrinogen supplementation in trauma is associated with reduced bleeding, blood transfusion, and death, the feasibility, safety and efficacy of early fibrinogen replacement remains unknown. We proposed to conduct a feasibility randomized trial to evaluate the use of early fibrinogen concentrate against placebo in injured patients at our trauma centre. A pilot trial is necessary to demonstrate the feasibility of rapidly preparing, delivering, and infusing fibrinogen concentrate as an early therapy to prevent excessive bleeding in trauma. This feasibility trial will provide preliminary safety and clinical outcome data to inform the design of larger trials; which ultimately aims to prevent bleeding-related deaths in the trauma population.