Kushida Y, Jitsuiki K, Muramatsu K, et al. - Via performing a retrospective analysis of the Japan Trauma Data Bank (JTDB) database, researchers sought to determine prognostic factors for severe thoracic trauma patients evacuated by a physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS) and ground ambulance. From January 2004 to May 2019, they enrolled a total of 57,872 patients, including 7,238 in the Heli group and 50,634 in the Ambulance group. The Heli group had greater survival ratio than that the Ambulance group. On including variables that showed statistical significance in the univariate analysis, multivariate analysis suggested significant predictive value of the RTS, transport by the HEMS, age, injury severity score (ISS) and female gender for survival outcome. Findings thereby suggest that transport by the HEM is associated with improved survival rate compared with that by a ground ambulance for patients with severe thoracic trauma.