Articles: traumatic-brain-injuries.
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
The burden of traumatic brain injury from low-energy falls among patients from 18 countries in the CENTER-TBI Registry: A comparative cohort study.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an important global public health burden, where those injured by high-energy transfer (e.g., road traffic collisions) are assumed to have more severe injury and are prioritised by emergency medical service trauma triage tools. However recent studies suggest an increasing TBI disease burden in older people injured through low-energy falls. We aimed to assess the prevalence of low-energy falls among patients presenting to hospital with TBI, and to compare their characteristics, care pathways, and outcomes to TBI caused by high-energy trauma. ⋯ We observed that patients sustaining TBI from low-energy falls are an important component of the TBI disease burden and a distinct demographic cohort; further, our findings suggest that energy transfer may not predict intracranial injury or acute care mortality in patients with TBI presenting to hospital. This suggests that factors beyond energy transfer level may be more relevant to prehospital and emergency department TBI triage in older people. A specific focus to improve prevention and care for patients sustaining TBI from low-energy falls is required.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Sep 2021
Multicenter Study Observational StudyCentral curation of Glasgow Outcome Scale- Extended (GOSE) data: lessons learned from TRACK-TBI.
The Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) in its original or extended (GOSE) form is the most widely used assessment of global disability in traumatic brain injury (TBI) research. Several publications have reported concerns about assessor scoring inconsistencies, but without documentation of contributing factors. We reviewed 6801 GOSE assessments collected longitudinally, across 18 sites in the 5-year, observational Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in TBI (TRACK-TBI) study. ⋯ GOSE sections associated with the most frequent interpretation and scoring difficulties included whether current functioning represented a change from pre-injury (466 corrected ratings in cohort 1; 62 in cohort 2), defining dependency in the home and community (163 corrections in cohort 1; three in cohort 2) and return to work/school (72 corrections in cohort 1; 35 in cohort 2). These results highlight the importance of central review in improving consistency across sites and over time. Establishing clear scoring criteria, coupled with ongoing guidance and feedback to data collectors, is essential to avoid scoring errors and resultant misclassification, which carry potential to result in "failure" of clinical trials that rely on the GOSE as their primary outcome measure.
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Intensive care medicine · Sep 2021
Multicenter Study Observational StudyManagement of arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the first week after traumatic brain injury: results from the CENTER-TBI study.
To describe the management of arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PaCO2) in severe traumatic brain-injured (TBI) patients, and the optimal target of PaCO2 in patients with high intracranial pressure (ICP). ⋯ Ventilation is manipulated differently among centers and in response to intracranial dynamics. PaCO2 tends to be lower in patients with ICP monitoring, especially if ICP is increased. Being in a centre which more frequently uses profound hyperventilation does not affect patient outcomes.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Sep 2021
Multicenter Study Observational StudyIgA autoreactivity towards brain enriched and apoptosis regulating proteins in saliva of athletes after acute concussion and subconcussive impacts.
The diagnosis and management of concussion is hindered by its diverse clinical presentation and assessment tools reliant on subjectively experienced symptoms. The biomechanical threshold of concussion is also not well understood, and asymptomatic concussion or "subconcussive impacts" of variable magnitudes are common in contact sports. Concerns have risen because athletes returning to activity too soon have an increased risk of prolonged recovery or long-term adverse health consequences. ⋯ These results may suggest that concussion and subconcussion induce similar physiological effects, especially in terms of immune response. Our study demonstrates that saliva is a potential biofluid for autoantibody detection in concussion and subconcussion. After rigorous confirmation in much larger independent study sets, a validated salivary autoantibody assay could provide a non-subjective quantitative means of assessing concussive and subconcussive events.
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Journal of neurotrauma · Sep 2021
Multicenter StudyMagnetic Resonance Imaging Findings are Associated with Long-term Global Neurological Function or Death Following Traumatic Brain Injury in Critically Ill Children.
The identification of children with traumatic brain injury (TBI) who are at risk of death or poor global neurological functional outcome remains a challenge. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can detect several brain pathologies that are a result of TBI; however, the types and locations of pathology that are the most predictive remain to be determined. Forty-two critically ill children with TBI were recruited prospectively from pediatric intensive care units at five Canadian children's hospitals. ⋯ A linear predictive model of favorable versus unfavorable long-term outcomes was significantly improved when an MRI composite score was added to clinical variables. Nonlinear Random Forest modeling identified five MRI variables as stable predictors of poor outcomes: presence of herniation, DAI in the parietal lobe, DAI in the subcortical white matter, DAI in the posterior corpus callosum, and cerebral contusion in the anterior temporal lobe. Clinical MRI has prognostic value to identify children with TBI at risk of long-term unfavorable outcomes.