• Etienne Dereeper, Jacques Berré, Arlette Vandesteene, Florence Lefranc, and Jean-Louis Vincent.
• Department of Anesthesiology, Erasme Hospital, Free University of Brussels, Belgium.
• J Crit Care. 2002 Mar 1; 17 (1): 58-62.

PurposeTo determine the neurologic outcome of patients with intracranial hypertension treated with barbiturate-induced coma.Materials And MethodsThe records of 49 patients who were admitted to a 31-bed medicosurgical intensive care unit over a 5-year period in whom a barbiturate coma was induced to control intracranial hypertension were analyzed retrospectively. Analysis included assessment of the response to barbiturate coma and evaluation of the long-term neurologic outcome according to the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS).ResultsIntracranial hypertension was caused by head trauma in 28 patients and subarachnoid hemorrhage in 21 patients. Eight of the head trauma patients and 5 of the patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage survived their hospital stay. The survivors were younger than the nonsurvivors, and had a good neurologic status after 1 year (except for 2 patients who died 1 and 3 months after discharge, respectively). There was no significant difference in the Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) on admission between the survivors and the nonsurvivors. The long-term outcome at 1 year was markedly better in the patients who had experienced a subarachnoid hemorrhage than in the trauma patients.Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.

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