CT Findings in Closed Head Injuries with Special Reference to Contusions

Abstract

The diagnosis of epidural and subdural hematomas in a nearly stage following head injuries presents no problems. Figure 1a- c demonstrates differently localized epidural hematomas in the right frontal region, in the right parietal-occipital region, and in the posterior fossa. Anunusual CT (see Fig. 2) could not be defined. At first we suspected a recent bleeding in an older hematoma.At operation this hematoma was found to contain multiple persistent bleedings out of the dura on the one side and blood clots adherent to the dura on the other. Blood clots appear as areas of increased density in the CT, the recent unclotted hemorrhages are represented as isodense areas.A chronic epidural hematoma was formed by chance in a child in whom a retrobulbar hematoma was suggested. Figure 3 demonstrates the chronic epidural hematoma, characterized by the dense line due to the dislocated dura mater and hematoma contents of slightly increased absorption values. Sometimes epidural hematomas are combined with contusions, as seen in Figure 4.