Mounting evidence suggests hyperoxia therapy may be harmful. We describe injury characteristics and survival outcomes for pediatric trauma casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, stratified by partial pressure of arterial oxygen (PaO2). Secondarily, we performed subgroup analyses for severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) and massive transfusion of blood products (MT).

We utilized Department of Defense Trauma Registry data. We included subjects <18 years. We excluded subjects without an arterial blood gas (ABG). We stratified subjects as hyperoxemia (PaO2 100–300 mmHg) and extreme hyperoxemia (PaO2 >300 mmHg).

January 2007–January 2016, 3439 pediatric encounters were in the database. Of those, 1323 had an ABG, with 291 (22%) demonstrating hyperoxemia and 43 (3.3%) extreme hyperoxemia. The median age was 8, most were male (76%) in Afghanistan (69%), and injured by explosive (42%). There were no significant differences in survival between subjects with no hyperoxemia, hyperoxemia, and extreme hyperoxemia (92% vs 87% vs 86%; p = 0.078). Also, there were no significant differences in survival between groups among TBI and MT subjects, and there were no increased odds of survival between groups on multivariable regression analyses.

Hyperoxemia was common among hospitalized, wartime pediatric trauma casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan that underwent ABG analysis. Survival to hospital discharge rates were not significantly different between subjects with hyperoxemia and subjects without hyperoxemia.