Dr. Brian Harbrecht, Professor of Surgery in the Department of Surgery at UofL and Director of Trauma Surgery at UofL Hospital, and Dr. Raymond Orthober, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and Medical Director of Louisville Metro EMS, will lead UofL's participation in a Department of Defense (DOD)-funded clinical trial aimed at improving survival among people who have difficulty breathing after a trauma.

UofL will join nearly two dozen emergency medical service agencies across the country in the prehospital Airway Control Trial (PACT), which is an $8.8 million, four-year study, beginning at the end of 2019 that will test different strategies to help patients breathe at the scene of a trauma to see if one works better than another at increasing survival.

This is an "exception from informed consent" trial, which means that since the trial requires performing a potentially life-saving procedure in traumatically injured patients who are too injured to give consent to the trial, they will be automatically enrolled if they fit the criteria. Once patients are stable, they and/or their families will be notified that they were enrolled, and they can opt out of continued participation at that point. Learn more at the LITES Network.