Articles: brain-injuries.
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J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatr. · May 1999
Critical closing pressure in cerebrovascular circulation.
Cerebral critical closing pressure (CCP) has been defined as an arterial pressure threshold below which arterial vessels collapse. Hypothetically this is equal to intracranial pressure (ICP) plus the contribution from the active tone of cerebral arterial smooth muscle. The correlation of CCP with ICP, cerebral autoregulation, and other clinical and haemodynamic modalities in patients with head injury was evaluated. ⋯ Critical closing pressure, although sensitive to variations in ICP and CPP, cannot be used as an accurate estimator of these modalities with acceptable confidence intervals. The difference CCP-ICP significantly correlates with cerebral autoregulation, but it lacks the power to predict outcome after head injury.
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In Norway, most patients with severe head injuries are transported to, and operated in, the neurosurgical unit of the regional university hospital. However, some patients are still occasionally operated on in county central hospitals by orthopedic or general surgeons who do not have neurosurgical expertise. The aim was to analyze this surgical activity outside the neurosurgical units. ⋯ The present study indicates that, in Norway and countries with a similar hospital system, it must be difficult for general and orthopedic surgeons to achieve and maintain the skills required for emergency operations in patients with acute severe head injuries. Thus, it is probably to the patients' benefit to improve the general hospitals' competency and speed in the detection of candidates for surgical decompression, and stress the importance of these patients being transferred without unnecessary delay to a neurosurgical unit.
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Anesteziol Reanimatol · May 1999
Comparative Study[Clinico-pathogenetic variants of DIC syndrome in patients with severe craniocerebral trauma].
Detection of clinical and pathogenetic variants of the DIC syndrome for development of its differentiated therapy in multiple-modality treatment of severe craniocerebral injury was the purpose of this study. A total of 170 patients with grave craniocerebral injury were examined. The hemostasis system was studied by the following methods: analysis of platelet hemostasis, general coagulation tests, fibrinolysis evaluation, detection of physiological anticoagulants and markers of intravascular blood coagulation and fibrinolysis. Based on the clinical (intra- and extracranial) symptoms and results of studies of the hemostasis system, 3 clinical pathogenetic variants of the DIC syndrome were distinguished, which should be borne in mine when treating patients with severe craniocerebral injury developing the DIC syndrome.
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Journal of neurochemistry · May 1999
Effects of moderate hypothermia on constitutive and inducible nitric oxide synthase activities after traumatic brain injury in the rat.
We investigated the effects of therapeutic hypothermia (30 degrees C) on alterations in constitutive (cNOS) and inducible (iNOS) nitric oxide synthase activities following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Male Sprague-Dawley rats were anesthetized with 0.5% halothane and underwent moderate (1.8-2.2 atm) parasagittal fluid-percussion (F-P) brain injury. In normothermic rats (37 degrees C) the enzymatic activity of cNOS was significantly increased at 5 min within the injured cerebral cortex compared with contralateral values (286.5+/-68.9% of contralateral value; mean+/-SEM). ⋯ Posttraumatic hypothermia also significantly reduced iNOS activity at 7 days compared with normothermic rats (0.021+/-0.06 and 0.23+/-0.06 pmol/mg of protein/min, respectively; p < 0.05). The present results indicate that hypothermia (a) decreases early cNOS activation after TBI, (b) preserves cNOS activity at later periods, and (c) prevents the delayed induction of iNOS. Temperature-dependent alterations in cNOS and iNOS enzymatic activities may participate in the neuroprotective effect of hypothermia in this TBI model.
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J. Nerv. Ment. Dis. · May 1999
Postconcussive symptoms and posttraumatic stress disorder after mild traumatic brain injury.
Postconcussive symptoms after mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) may be exacerbated by anxiety associated with posttraumatic stress. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between postconcussive symptoms and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in an MTBI population. ⋯ Further, postconcussive symptoms were significantly correlated with PTSD symptoms. These findings indicate that postconcussive symptoms may be mediated by an interaction of neurological and psychological factors after MTBI.