In-vehicle extremity injuries from improvised explosive devices: current and future foci

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been epitomized by the insurgents' use of the improvised explosive device against vehicle-borne security forces. These weapons, capable of causing multiple severely injured casualties in a single incident, pose the most prevalent single threat to Coali...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences 2011-01, Vol.366 (1562), p.160-170
Main Authors: Ramasamy, Arul, Masouros, Spyros D., Newell, Nicolas, Hill, Adam M., Proud, William G., Brown, Katherine A., Bull, Anthony M. J., Clasper, Jon C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biomechanical Phenomena
Biomechanics
Blast injuries
Blast Injuries - pathology
Blast Injuries - therapy
Blast Injury
Blasts
Bombs
Bone fractures
Bones
Extremities - pathology
Finite Element Analysis
Finite-Element Modelling
High Strain Rates
Humans
Impact Testing
Land mines
Lower extremity
Lower Limb
Military Medicine - methods
Military Medicine - trends
Military Personnel
Models, Anatomic
Motor Vehicles
Physical trauma
Shock waves
Strain rate
Vehicles
Warfare
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Summary:The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been epitomized by the insurgents' use of the improvised explosive device against vehicle-borne security forces. These weapons, capable of causing multiple severely injured casualties in a single incident, pose the most prevalent single threat to Coalition troops operating in the region. Improvements in personal protection and medical care have resulted in increasing numbers of casualties surviving with complex lower limb injuries, often leading to long-term disability. Thus, there exists an urgent requirement to investigate and mitigate against the mechanism of extremity injury caused by these devices. This will necessitate an ontological approach, linking molecular, cellular and tissue interaction to physiological dysfunction. This can only be achieved via a collaborative approach between clinicians, natural scientists and engineers, combining physical and numerical modelling tools with clinical data from the battlefield. In this article, we compile existing knowledge on the effects of explosions on skeletal injury, review and critique relevant experimental and computational research related to lower limb injury and damage and propose research foci required to drive the development of future mitigation technologies.
ISSN:0962-8436
1471-2970
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2010.0219