Journal of neurosurgery
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Journal of neurosurgery · May 2012
Use and utility of preoperative hemostatic screening and patient history in adult neurosurgical patients.
The utility of preoperative hemostasis screening to predict complications is uncertain. The authors quantified the screening rate in US neurosurgery patients and evaluated the ability of abnormal test results as compared with history-based risk factors to predict hemostasis-related and general outcomes. ⋯ This is the first study focused on assessing preoperative hemostasis screening as compared with patient history in a large multicenter sample of adult neurosurgery patients to predict hemostasis-related outcomes. Patient history was as predictive as laboratory testing for all outcomes, with higher sensitivity. Routine laboratory screening appears to have limited utility. Testing limited to neurosurgical patients with a positive history would save an estimated $81,942,000 annually.
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Journal of neurosurgery · May 2012
Is aggressive treatment of traumatic brain injury cost-effective?
The object of this study was to determine whether aggressive treatment of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), including invasive intracranial monitoring and decompressive craniectomy, is cost-effective. ⋯ When all the costs of severe TBI are considered, aggressive treatment is a cost-effective option, even for older patients. Comfort care for severe TBI is associated with poor outcomes and high costs, and should be reserved for situations in which aggressive approaches have failed or testing suggests such treatment is futile.
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Journal of neurosurgery · May 2012
Case ReportsHigh-definition fiber tracking for assessment of neurological deficit in a case of traumatic brain injury: finding, visualizing, and interpreting small sites of damage.
For patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI), current clinical imaging methods generally do not provide highly detailed information about the location of axonal injury, severity of injury, or expected recovery. In a case of severe TBI, the authors applied a novel high-definition fiber tracking (HDFT) to directly visualize and quantify the degree of axonal fiber damage and predict functional deficits due to traumatic axonal injury and loss of cortical projections. This 32-year-old man sustained a severe TBI. ⋯ A repeat scan at 10 months postinjury, when edema and hemorrhage had receded, replicated the fiber loss. Using HDFT, the authors accurately identified the presence and location of damage to the underlying white matter in this patient with TBI. Detailed information of injury provided by this novel technique holds future potential for precise neuroimaging assessment of TBI.
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Journal of neurosurgery · May 2012
Effect of intraoperative subthalamic nucleus DBS on human single-unit activity in the ipsilateral and contralateral subthalamic nucleus.
Insight may be gained into the physiological mechanisms of deep brain stimulation (DBS) by analyzing local and contralateral subthalamic nucleus (STN) single-unit activity during activation of previously placed DBS electrodes. Special techniques are required to perform such analysis due to the presence of a large stimulus artifact. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of DBS stimulation on single unit activity acquired from patients undergoing new or revised DBS placements. ⋯ Stimulation of the STN at clinically effective frequencies has an acute suppressive rather than an excitatory effect on STN single-unit activity. The effect is bilateral, even though the degree of suppression is greater on the ipsilateral than the contralateral STN. The authors' algorithm helps reveal this effect in human patients.
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Journal of neurosurgery · May 2012
Case ReportsNeurosurgical complications of direct thrombin inhibitors--catastrophic hemorrhage after mild traumatic brain injury in a patient receiving dabigatran.
Dabigatran etexilate is an oral anticoagulant that acts as a direct, competitive thrombin inhibitor. Large randomized clinical trials have shown higher doses of dabigatran (150 mg taken twice daily) to be superior to warfarin in terms of stroke and systemic embolism rates in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. As a result, in 2010 the US FDA approved the use of dabigatran for the prevention of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation. ⋯ To date, no effective reversal agent for dabigatran in the event of catastrophic hemorrhage has been identified. The authors report a case of an elderly patient, being treated with dabigatran for atrial fibrillation, who presented with a rapidly expanding intracranial hemorrhage after a ground-level fall. This case highlights an impending neurosurgical quandary of complications secondary to this new anticoagulation agent and suggests potential options for management.