Articles: brain-injuries.
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We prospectively and retrospectively reviewed a series of 780 patients who presented to the University of Southern California/Los Angeles County Medical Center with a diagnosis of gunshot wound to the brain during an 8-year period. Of these, 105 were children ranging in age from 6 months to 17 years. Injuries were gang related in 76 (72%) children and adolescents. ⋯ The Department of Neurological Surgery is becoming directly involved in providing information to children at the junior high school level regarding gang activity and brain and spinal cord injury. In conjunction with the Community Youth Gang Services Organization and Think First Organization, we are attempting to integrate prevention through education and community mobilization. This is a plan aimed at informing and recovering the youth affected by gangs.
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Brain retraction is required for adequate exposure during many intracranial procedures. The incidence of contusion or infarction from overzealous brain retraction is probably 10% in cranial base procedures and 5% in intracranial aneurysm procedures. The literature on brain retraction injury is reviewed, with particular attention to the use of intermittent retraction. ⋯ Recommendations for operative management of cases involving significant brain retraction are made. These recommendations optimize the following goals: anesthesia and metabolic depression, improvement in cerebral blood flow and calcium channel blockade, intraoperative monitoring, and operative exposure and retraction efficacy. Through a combination of judicious retraction, appropriate anesthetic and pharmacological management, and aggressive intraoperative monitoring, brain retraction should become a much less common source of morbidity in the future.
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Kinderärztliche Praxis · Dec 1993
[Use of the Glasgow Coma Scale in pediatric craniocerebral trauma].
Over five years the applicability of a modified Glasgow Coma Scale was analysed in 38 children (mean age 7.2 +/- 3.8 years) with head and associated injuries (47.4%). The score was estimated after the accident and in the course of intensive therapy. At the beginning of the treatment on the intensive care unit, the cases were staged according to the severity of the head injuries (Glasgow Coma Scale: 4-8, 9-12 and 13-19 points). ⋯ Over 13 points, all patients had a shorter duration of treatment (10.8 +/- 8.8 days) and a quick and good recovery. The Glasgow Coma Scale has the advantage of an examination with a quantitative analysis and resulting effective diagnostic and therapeutic measures. Even the inexperienced physician can use the Glasgow Coma Scale with success at the site of the accident.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Nov 1993
Effects of isoflurane, fentanyl, or thiopental anesthesia on regional cerebral blood flow and brain surface PO2 in the presence of a focal lesion in rabbits.
These studies were conducted to determine the effect of anesthetic drugs on tissue perfusion and O2 supply in the brain with focal cerebral edema. Using an open cranium preparation, we studied the effects of isoflurane (I; 1 minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration), of fentanyl (F; 0.5-1 microgram.kg-1 x min-1), or of thiopental (T; 32.5 mg.kg-1 x h-1) on regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and regional brain tissue PO2 in albino rabbits (n = 6 per group) with a focal brain lesion (cold injury). The doses of anesthetics were sufficient to suppress nociception. rCBF (H2 clearance) and tissue PO2 (multiwire surface electrode) were studied adjacent to and distant from the lesion. ⋯ The heterogeneity of the tissue PO2 in fentanyl anesthesia, as well as the increased frequency of hypoxic PO2 values with thiopental, might have resulted from microcirculatory disturbances. Thus, although isoflurane seemed to facilitate hyperemia with an increased O2 supply to the brain, fentanyl tended to induce the opposite response. Although these properties suggest the potential to manipulate perfusion and O2 supply in cerebral ischemia or hyperemia after head injury, the effects of such measures on intracranial pressure, neurologic status, and outcome have yet to be proven.