Are steroids really ineffective for severely head injured patients?

Abstract

The "Guidelines for the Management of Severe Head Injury" states that the use of glucocorticoids is not recommended for improving morbidity outcome. Conversely, the "National Acute Spinal Cord Injury Study" (NASCIS) in the United States concluded that treatment with very high doses of methylprednisolone (30 mg/kg) is indicated for acute spinal cord trauma. In this paper the author will discuss the reasons for this great discrepancy between head injuries and spinal cord traumas. A 30-mg dose of methylprednisolone was used as a bolus dose in the spinal cord study to inhibit oxygen free radical-induced lipid peroxidation. In most of the papers cited containing Class I data on severe head injury studies the investigators used smaller doses of glucocorticoids as compared with those in the spinal cord study. Moreover, some of the papers included cases in which the time from insult to the initiation of treatment had been poorly controlled. Therefore, based on previous papers, it is appropriate to relinquish megadose steroid therapy for head injury patients. A good prospective multicenter trial of high-dose methylprednisolone for traumatic brain injury should be considered in which dosage and timing parameters similar to those enacted for the NASCIS studies are used.