Neurocritical care
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Intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring is central to the care of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). External ventricular drains (EVD) allow ICP control via cerebrospinal fluid drainage, whereas intraparenchymal monitors (IPM) for ICP do not, but it is unclear whether EVD placement improves outcomes. To evaluate whether there exists a difference in patient outcomes with the use of EVD versus IPM in severe TBI patients, we conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from the Citicoline Brain Injury Treatment trial. ⋯ Our retrospective data analysis suggests that early placement of EVDs in severe TBI is associated with worse functional and neuropsychological outcomes and higher mortality than IPMs and future prospective trials are needed to determine whether these results represent an important consideration for clinicians.
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Review Meta Analysis
Intracranial Hypertension After Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis of Prevalence and Mortality Rate.
The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of intracranial hypertension (IHT) and the associated mortality rate in patients who suffered from primary intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). A secondary objective was to assess predisposing factors to IHT development. We conducted a systematic literature search of major electronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library), for studies that assessed intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring in patients with acute ICH. ⋯ The prevalence and mortality rates associated with IHT after ICH are high and may be underestimated. Predicting factors for the development of IHT reflect the magnitude of the primary injury. However, the results of present meta-analysis should be interpreted with caution due to methodological limitations such as selection bias of patients who had ICP monitoring, and lack of standardized IHT definition.