LAUSR

To the Editor: R ecently, Lester et al. examined the relationship between hypothermia and blood products consumption in severely traumatized patients. We really appreciate the great deal of work and results obtained. Authors have made a great effort to carry out an analysis and to draw important conclusions. There are, however, several aspects, which merit emphasis. Lester and coworkers reported that 86.8% of patients had a temperature measured during the first 6 hours in the hospital. This reflects the full awareness of the providers that early detection of hypothermia is an important objective of the early phase of trauma care. There was, however, a variability in the time to temperature measurement and a trend to increased propensity to check temperature in more severely injured patients. Moreover, as authors admitted that “anatomical location and method of temperature measurement were neither standardized nor documented,” the temperature data can be biased by variability in the devices used and different locations of measurement. Authors recognized these topics as limitations, but in our opinion, they should be discussed as the secondary findings, as it draws attention to standardization of timing and technical aspects of temperature measurement. We are aware of the problems with core temperature establishment in prehospital care and early period after hospital admission. However, since the clinical decisions are based on core