The use of mixed venous blood gas determinations in traumatic shock.

A series of 10 seriously injured patients requiring resuscitation and definitive operative control of hemorrhage was studied. Simultaneous arterial and mixed venous blood gases were measured sequentially throughout the resuscitative and operative periods. Improvement of the mixed venous oxygen saturation was associated with survival. In this study, mixed venous oxygen saturations were valuable predictors of survival and were a helpful parameter to monitor during the resuscitative, operative, and immediate postoperative periods.