Editorial

Dear colleagues,

Polytrauma management has experienced great advances in the last ten to fifteen years. Mortality has decreased and life expectancy after severe trauma has increased due to the huge improvements in prehospital and emergency room management. It is strange sometimes to see good systems being dismantled like the German system of the “Unfallchirurgie”. However, only time will show if a new system will bring advantages. As had been shown, proven and demonstrated at the Vienna Future symposium last year in the field's main topic polytrauma it is the ATLS system that might bring further advantages due to its clear algorithms in polytrauma management. Peter Brink and Jan Verbruggen have been so kind as to write a description of ATLS for Europe. ATLS started in the United States due to a surgeon who crashed with his aeroplane somewhere in the United States and lost some of his family members due to delayed polytrauma management. ATLS since then has improved polytrauma management not only in the United States but also in Europe due to its clear guidelines. However, I don't think it is important if you call it a working system, ATLS, or anything else. The most important thing is to have a clear algorithm. I am convinced that it is important to have a clear trauma leader who should surely be a trauma surgeon to lead the team and to make clear decisions.

I hope that this special issue on polytrauma management might help especially our younger colleagues in gaining some guidelines and new information in polytrauma management.

Sincerely,
Christian Gäbler