• Matthieu Vinchon, Véronique Pierrat, Tchofo Patrice Jissendi PJ, Gustavo Soto-Ares, and Patrick Dhellemmes.
• Department of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Lille University Hospital, Lille Cedex, France. m.vinchon@chru-lille.fr
• Childs Nerv Syst. 2005 Dec 1; 21 (12): 1042-8.

IntroductionNeonatal traumatic head injuries (NTHI) can be life-threatening and require aggressive treatment. The indications, techniques, and results of brain decompression are not well defined in the literature.MethodsWe studied prospectively cases of NTHI with intracranial traumatic lesions; skull fractures without underlying lesions were not included. We treated 17 cases of NTHI: 7 patients had a subdural hematoma, 3 had an extradural hematoma, and the others had subarachnoid hemorrhage. Surgical evacuation of intracranial clots was performed in 7 cases, by needle aspiration in 5 and by craniotomy in 2 patients with extradural hematomas.ResultsThe outcome was favorable in all but one patient, who had hemophilia A, and died of rebleeding at the age of 2 months.ConclusionSurgical decompression of intracranial hematomas due to NTHI is often unnecessary; however, it may be required in emergency because of poor clinical tolerance. Whenever possible, percutaneous needle aspiration is the treatment of choice.

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