• Alvan-Emeka K Ukachukwu, Shiva A Nischal, Yesel Trillo-Ordonez, Evaristus E Nwaribe, Nancy Abu-Bonsrah, Toluyemi A Malomo, Toyin A Oyemolade, Oluwakemi A Badejo, Di D Deng, Megan E H Still, Ena C Oboh, Oghenekevwe E Okere, Isaac Asemota, Ehita N Oboh, Olaniyi D Ogundeji, Chiazam Ugorji, Raphia Rahman, Padmavathi Reddy, Andreas Seas, Romaric Waguia-Kouam, Megan von Isenburg, Anthony T Fuller, Michael M Haglund, and Amos O Adeleye.
• Division of Global Neurosurgery and Neurology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA; Department of Neurosurgery, Duke University Health System, Durham, North Carolina, USA. Electronic address: alvan.ukachukwu@duke.edu.
• World Neurosurg. 2024 May 1; 185: e99e142e99-e142.

ObjectiveNeurotrauma is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. We conducted this systematic review to generate nationally generalizable reference data for the country.MethodsFour research databases and gray literature sources were electronically searched. Risk of bias was assessed using the Risk of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions and Cochrane's risk of bias tools. Descriptive analysis, narrative synthesis, and statistical analysis (via paired t-tests and χ2 independence tests) were performed on relevant article metrics (α = 0.05).ResultsWe identified a cohort of 45,763 patients from 254 articles. The overall risk of bias was moderate to high. Most articles employed retrospective cohort study designs (37.4%) and were published during the last 2 decades (81.89%). The cohort's average age was 32.5 years (standard deviation, 20.2) with a gender split of ∼3 males per female. Almost 90% of subjects were diagnosed with traumatic brain injury, with road traffic accidents (68.6%) being the greatest cause. Altered consciousness (48.4%) was the most commonly reported clinical feature. Computed tomography (53.5%) was the most commonly used imaging modality, with skull (25.7%) and vertebral fracture (14.1%) being the most common radiological findings for traumatic brain injury and traumatic spinal injury, respectively. Two-thirds of patients were treated nonoperatively. Outcomes were favorable in 63.7% of traumatic brain injury patients, but in only 20.9% of traumatic spinal injury patients. Pressure sores, infection, and motor deficits were the most commonly reported complications in the latter.ConclusionsThis systematic review and pooled analysis demonstrate the significant burden of neurotrauma across Nigeria.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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