It might be true, but there’s no way to know from this study – another illuminating example of just how difficult it is to perform trauma research.
Given that increased platelet transfusion in trauma has been linked to sepsis, ARDS, and other untoward outcomes, these authors decided to retrospectively evaluate whether the age of the platelet had any effect on sepsis, ARDS, ARF, liver failure, and mortality. And, the answer – like I said, who knows? The group that received four-day old platelets had the highest ISS – mostly attribute to head AIS >3 – in addition to an unlimited number of accounted for and unaccounted for confounding variables.
If you believe their adjustments, their proportional hazard regression model shakes out platelet and blood product age-related variables as significant associations with complications – most of which is sepsis. So, while the authors are probably right, there are limitations.
“Impact of the Duration of Platelet Storage in Critically Ill Trauma Patients”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22182887