Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2011
Prognostic value of magnetic resonance imaging in moderate and severe head injury: a prospective study of early MRI findings and one-year outcome.
The clinical benefit of early magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in severe and moderate head injury is unclear. We sought to explore the prognostic value of the depth of lesions depicted with early MRI, and also to describe the prevalence and impact of traumatic brainstem lesions. In a cohort of 159 consecutive patients with moderate to severe head injury (age 5-65 years and surviving the acute phase) admitted to a regional level 1 trauma center, 106 (67%) were examined with MRI within 4 weeks post-injury. ⋯ Limitations of the current study include lack of blinded outcome evaluations and insufficient statistical power to assess the added prognostic value of MRI when combined with clinical information. We conclude that in patients with severe head injury surviving the acute phase, depth of lesion on the MRI was associated with outcome, and in particular, bilateral brainstem injury was strongly associated with poor outcomes. In moderate head injury, surprisingly, there was no association between MRI findings and outcome when using the GOSE score as outcome measure.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2011
High intracranial pressure effects on cerebral cortical microvascular flow in rats.
To manage patients with high intracranial pressure (ICP), clinicians need to know the critical cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) required to maintain cerebral blood flow (CBF). Historically, the critical CPP obtained by decreasing mean arterial pressure (MAP) to lower CPP was 60 mm Hg, which fell to 30 mm Hg when CPP was reduced by increasing ICP. We examined whether this decrease in critical CPP was due to a pathological shift from capillary (CAP) to high-velocity microvessel flow or thoroughfare channel (TFC) shunt flow. ⋯ Decreasing CPP by MAP decreased TFC shunt flow with a smaller rise in NADH and no edema. Doppler flux decreased less with increasing ICP than decreasing MAP. The decrease seen in the critical CPP with increased ICP is likely due to a redistribution of microvascular flow from capillary to microvascular shunt flow or TFC shunt flow, resulting in a pathologically elevated CBF associated with tissue hypoxia and brain edema, characteristic of non-nutritive shunt flow.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2011
Variants of the endothelial nitric oxide gene and cerebral blood flow after severe traumatic brain injury.
Experimental studies suggest that nitric oxide produced by endothelial nitric oxide synthase (NOS3) plays a role in maintaining cerebral blood flow (CBF) after traumatic brain injury (TBI). The purpose of this study was to determine if common variants of the NOS3 gene contribute to hypoperfusion after severe TBI. Fifty-one patients with severe TBI were studied. ⋯ The findings in this study support the importance of NO produced by NOS3 activity in maintaining CBF after TBI, since lower CBF values were found in patients having the -786C allele. The study suggests that a patient's individual genetic makeup may contribute to the brain's response to injury and determine the patient's chances of surviving the injury. The results here will need to be studied in a larger number of patients, but could explain some of the variability in outcome that occurs following severe TBI.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2011
Multicenter StudyA phase I/IIa clinical trial of a recombinant Rho protein antagonist in acute spinal cord injury.
Multiple lines of evidence have validated the Rho pathway as important in controlling the neuronal response to growth inhibitory proteins after central nervous system (CNS) injury. A drug called BA-210 (trademarked as Cethrin(®)) blocks activation of Rho and has shown promise in pre-clinical animal studies in being used to treat spinal cord injury (SCI). This is a report of a Phase I/IIa clinical study designed to test the safety and tolerability of the drug, and the neurological status of patients following the administration of a single dose of BA-210 applied during surgery following acute SCI. ⋯ Approximately 6% of thoracic patients converted from ASIA A to ASIA C or D compared to 31% of cervical patients and 66% for the 3-mg cervical cohort. Although the patient numbers are small, the observed motor recovery in this open-label trial suggests that BA-210 may increase neurological recovery after complete SCI. Further clinical trials with Cethrin in SCI patients are planned, to establish evidence of efficacy.
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Journal of neurotrauma · May 2011
Early post-traumatic seizures in moderate to severe pediatric traumatic brain injury: rates, risk factors, and clinical features.
We performed a retrospective, observational study at a level I pediatric trauma center of children with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) from January 2002 to September 2006 to identify clinical and radiographic risk factors for early post-traumatic seizures (EPTS). Two hundred and ninety-nine children ages 0-15 years were evaluated, with 24 excluded because they died before the initial head computed tomography (CT) was obtained (n=20), or because their medical records were missing (n=4). Records were reviewed for accident characteristics, pre-hospital hypoxia or hypotension, initial non-contrast head CT characteristics, seizure occurrence, antiepileptic drug (AED) administration, and outcome. ⋯ AED treatment was protective against EPTS (OR 0.2 [95% CI 0.07,0.5]). Twenty-three (68%) patients developed EPTS within the first 12 h post-injury. This early peak in EPTS activity and demonstrated protective effect of AED administration in this cohort suggests that to evaluate the maximal potential benefit among patients at increased risk for EPTS, future research should be randomized and prospective, and should intervene during pre-trauma center care with initiation of continuous EEG monitoring as soon as possible.