Inflammatory Response to Trauma - Does Early Cytokine Modulation Improve Patient Outcome?

Post traumatic inflammatory response is a complex process associated with many clinical complications affecting both short and long term outcomes in the trauma patients. The present prospective randomized clinical study will test the hypothesis that administering a NSAID (Ketorolac) in low dose for a brief time period will improve the clinical outcomes of orthopaedic trauma patients, leading to shorter hospital length of stay, reduction in post-traumatic complications, and reduction in opioid intake during both inpatient and outpatient settings. This unique research design is the first to use an integrative approach that addresses the external anatomic injury (standard clinical management protocols of trauma patients) with the internal physiologic response (modulation of inflammatory cytokines via an NSAID) to ultimately improve the trauma patients' clinical outcome by addressing both parameters as opposed to focusing solely on the external injuries. This randomized control trial will consist of a total of 112 participants (56 participants in the control cohorts, 56 participants in the treatment cohort) enrolled over a two year period. Inflammatory cytokine levels, hospital length of stay, and post-traumatic complications, and inpatient and outpatient opioid use will be analyzed and compared in both groups using both within and longitudinal analysis. The data obtained from this study will be used to fuel future research efforts and grant funding opportunities to conduct a larger, more powerful, multi-institutional clinical trial.