Timing of Surgical Intervention for Compartment Syndrome

When in a closed district of the body the pressure rapidly rises, some physiological changes that occur can be fatal. Three main factors define the ability to tolerate a rise in pressure of a body compartment: (1) expandability of the given district (e.g., the abdomen better tolerate pressure’s rise than the unexpandable skull), (2) the presence of structures in that closed space that are likely to suffer from rise in pressure (e.g., nerves and blood vessels), and (3) the generalized effects that the increasing pressure generate on the global body homeostasis.