Tag Archives: TBI

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Can TBI Be Managed Without Neurosurgical Consultation?

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The standard of care in most high level trauma centers is to involve neurosurgeons in the care of patients with significant traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, not all hospitals that take care of trauma patients have immediate availability of this resource. A paper to be presented at the upcoming EAST meeting looked at management of these patients by acute care surgeons.

The authors retrospectively reviewed all patients who had a TBI and positive head CT managed with or without neurosurgery consultation over a two year period. Although the authors were from the University of Arizona, a Level I ACS trauma center, the abstract does not explicitly state whether the patients were seen in their hospital or another lower level one.They matched the patients with and without neurosurgical consultation for age, GCS, AIS-Head and presence of skull fracture and intracranial hemorrhage.

A total of 90 patients with and 90 patients without neursurgical involvement were reviewed. Here are the interesting findings:

  • Hospital admission rate was identical for both groups (87-90%)
  • ICU admission was significantly higher if neurosurgeons were involved (20% vs 41%)
  • Repeat head CT was ordered more than 3 times as often by neurosurgeons (20% vs 72%)
  • Post-discharge head CT was ordered more often by neurosurgeons, but was not significantly higher (5% vs 12%)

Nothing is said about complications or mortality, or whether neurosurgeons were available in case things went awry.

Bottom line: This abstract raises an interesting question: can surgeons safely manage select patients with intracranial injury? The answer is probably yes, although this abstract is not complete enough to fully support the idea. The majority of patients with mild to moderate TBI with small intracranial bleeds do well despite everything we throw at them. And it appears that surgeons use fewer resources managing them than neurosurgeons do. The keys to being able to use this type of system are to identify at-risk patients who really do need a neurosurgeon early, and having a quick way to get the neurosurgeon involved (by consultation or hospital transfer). As neurosurgery involvement in acute trauma declines, this concept will become more and more pertinent.

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Reference: The acute care surgery model: managing traumatic brain injury without an inpatient neurosurgical consultation. EAST Annual Scientific Assembly, Paper 10, January 2013.

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The Value Of Repeated Head CT

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Repeating the head CT in patients with head injury has almost become routine. This practice varies greatly and depends on the neurosurgeon’s preference in many centers. It occurs most commonly when there is blood inside the skull, any type of blood. But does this practice make sense? Sure, if you’ve got a small epidural it seems reasonable. But what about that wisp of subarachnoid blood?

Another paper being presented at the Congress of Neurologic Surgeons this fall describes a review of 445 cases at their hospital and a meta-analysis of 15 studies in the literature. The authors looked at the practice of repeat CT scanning with respect to the good old clinical exam. They stratified all patients who underwent an intervention after repeat CT into two groups, based on changing clinical exam or CT findings.

They found that a significant number of patients required some management change based on deteriorating neurologic exam, whereas very few required it based on the repeat CT. The authors concluded that it is not necessary to rescan a head trauma patient if their neurologic status is stable or improving. 

Bottom line: This is preliminary data, and it is only available in abstract form, so don’t change your practice yet. We need more information on how many patients were reviewed and how good the meta-analysis was. However, you should begin to question whether rescanning everyone is necessary or prudent. Not all head injuries are alike, and some of the trivial ones, like subarachnoid blood in a young adult probably don’t need a repeat scan. More to come when this is presented and/or published.

Reference: The Value of Scheduled Repeat Cranial Computed Tomography Following Mild Head Injury: Single Center Experience and Meta-Analysis. Paper 152, presented at the Congress of Neurologic Surgeons, October 2012.

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Subdural Hematomas and Hygromas Simplified

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There’s a lot of confusion about subdural pathology after head trauma. All subdural collections are located under the dura, on the surface of the brain. In some way they involve or can involve the bridging veins, which are somewhat fragile and get more so with age.

Head trauma causes a subdural hematoma by tearing some of these bridging veins. Notice how thick the dura is and how delicate the bridging veins are in the image below.

When these veins tear, bleeding ensues which layers out over the surface of the brain in that area. If the bleeding does not stop, pressure builds and begins compressing and shifting the brain. A subdural hematoma is considered acute from time of injury until about 3 days later. During this time, it appears more dense than brain tissue.

After about 3-7 days, the clot begins to liquefy and becomes less dense on CT. Many hematomas are reabsorbed, but occasionally there is repeated bleeding from the bridging veins, or the hematoma draws fluid into itself due to the concentration gradient. It can enlarge and begin to cause new symptoms. During this period it is considered subacute.

It moves on to a more chronic stage over the ensuing weeks. The blood cells in it break down completely, and the fluid that is left is generally less dense than the brain underneath it. The image below shows a chronic subdural (arrows).

Hygromas are different, in that they are a collection of CSF and not blood. They are caused by a tear in the meninges and allow CSF to accumulate in the subdural space. This can be caused by head trauma as well, and is generally very slow to form. They can lead to slow neurologic deterioration, and are often found on head CT in patients with a history of falls, sometimes in the distant past. CT appearance is similar to a chronic subdural, but the density is the same as CSF, so it should have the same appearance as the fluid in the ventricle on CT.

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Return To Baseline After Concussion

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Here’s another interesting paper that was presented at the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. There’s a lot of attention being focused on the incidence and management of concussion during sporting events. An international Concussion in Sport Group has been meeting for over 10 years, contemplating classification and management of this injury. They are considering using age to modify management of concussion in young athletes.

The authors looked at their own experience with 200 adolescent and young athletes. They stratified by age (younger = 13-16 year olds, older = 18-22 year olds), with 100 in each group. They matched them by number of previous concussions, and all underwent baseline and post-concussion ImPACT testing. They specifically looked at the number of days needed to return to baseline.

Interestingly, they identified significant differences in recovery time. And strangely enough, the older players did better than the younger ones. Overall, 90% returned to baseline within a month. But the younger players took 2-3 days longer to recover than the older ones. 

Bottom line: Looks like the Concussion in Sport Group is right on! Usually in trauma, older folks do worse than younger ones, so we tend to treat them more carefully. Not so in youngsters with concussions. Sports medicine physicians need to realize that the younger brain takes longer to recover, and they should err on the safe side and keep them out of the game longer. Objective testing to help predict return to play is extremely helpful.

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Reference: Sport-Related Concussion and Age: Number of Days to Neurocognitive Baseline. Oral presentation 145 – Congress of Neurological Surgeons 2012.

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Operative Management Of TBI By Non-Neurosurgeons?

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In the US, Level I and II trauma centers are required to have around the clock neurosurgical coverage. This becomes problematic, especially in more rural areas, because they are a scarce resource. This problem is not limited to the States, and other countries have learned how to deal with it in their own ways.

A recent paper from Austria and the Slovak Republic looked at how this issue is dealt with at some centers in central Europe, and the impact of having neurosurgical procedures performed by trauma surgeons. The researchers looked at various databases maintained by 10 tertiary care hospitals in a retrospective fashion. Patients were included if they had a GCS of 8 or less and they survived to ICU admission. Some centers had neurosurgeons available, while others had only trauma surgeons. Procedures were performed by the appropriate type of surgeon in each center.

A total of 743 patients were evaluated, and about 68% underwent a neurosurgical procedure while 6% had an ICP monitor inserted. About a quarter of these patients had other significant associated injuries and were excluded, since the authors were interested in measuring effects in TBI patients. This left 311 patients, of whom 61% were treated by neurosurgeons and the remainder by trauma surgeons.

Here are some of the interesting findings:

  • Prehospital airway was provided more frequently in the neurosurgical treatment group, which should potentially improve outcome
  • ED management time and time to OR was shorter in the neurosurgical treatment group, which should also potentially improve outcome
  • However, there was no difference in ICU survival, hospital survival, or long-term outcome!

Bottom line: This is an interesting but poorly constructed study. Don’t believe the results! Other researchers’ leftover databases were used, and some databases were excluded because “quality of care was not comparable” to other centers. This is the worst kind of selection bias! If you believe the results, then you would also have to believe that airway control and prompt operative management don’t really matter much. The paucity of neurosurgeons who are interested in trauma care is pervasive. However, we still need to look for solutions to this problem and they remain a very valuable member of the trauma team.

Reference: Outcome of patients with severe brain trauma who were treated either by neurosurgeons or by trauma surgeons. J Trauma 72(5):1263-1270, 2012.