Journal of neurotrauma
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Journal of neurotrauma · Jan 2007
Cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers versus glasgow coma scale and glasgow outcome scale in pediatric traumatic brain injury: the role of young age and inflicted injury.
The Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) are widely used clinical scoring systems to measure the severity of neurologic injury after traumatic brain injury (TBI), but have recognized limitations in infants and small children. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of neuron-specific enolase (NSE) and S100B show promise as markers of brain injury. We hypothesized that the initial GCS and 6-month GOS scores would be inversely associated with CSF NSE and/or S100B concentrations after severe pediatric TBI. ⋯ In subgroup analysis, both markers correlated significantly with GCS and GOS scores only in older (>4 years) victims of nTBI; no correlation was found for patients < or =4 years old or victims of iTBI. While confirming the overall correlations between GCS/GOS score and CSF NSE and S100B seen in prior studies, we conclude that these clinical and CSF biomarkers of brain injury do not correlate in children < or =4 years of age and/or victims of iTBI. Although further, prospective study is warranted, these findings suggest important limitations in our current ability to assess injury severity in this important population.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Jan 2007
Neurointensive care; impaired cerebral autoregulation in infants and young children early after inflicted traumatic brain injury: a preliminary report.
The objective of this report is to describe cerebral autoregulation after severe inflicted pediatric traumatic brain injury (iTBI). We examined cerebral autoregulation of both cerebral hemispheres (mean autoregulatory index; ARI) in children <5 years with Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of <9 and no evidence of brain death within the first 48 h of pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) admission. Discharge and 6-month Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) scores were collected. ⋯ Two of the children with nTBI had intact autoregulation in both hemispheres and good outcome. Two of the three children with iTBI had differential effects on autoregulation between hemispheres despite bilateral injury. These are, to our knowledge, the first data on cerebral blood flow autoregulation in the unique setting of iTBI and provide a rationale for further study of their relationship to outcome and effects of therapy.