Abstract
Age and biological sex are two potential important modifiers of cerebrovascular reactivity post-traumatic brain injury (TBI) requiring close evaluation for potential subgroup responses. The goal of this study was to provide a preliminary exploratory analysis of the impact of age and biological sex on measures of cerebrovascular function in moderate/severe TBI. Forty-nine patients from the prospectively maintained TBI database at the University of Manitoba with archived high-frequency digital cerebral physiology were evaluated. Cerebrovascular reactivity indices were derived as follows: PRx (correlation between intracranial pressure [ICP] and mean arterial pressure [MAP]), PAx (correlation between pulse amplitude of ICP [AMP] and MAP), and RAC (correlation between AMP and cerebral perfusion pressure [CPP]). Time above clinically significant thresholds for each index was calculated over different periods of the acute intensive care unit stay. The association between PRx, PAx, and RAC measures with age was assessed using linear regression, and an age trichotomization scheme (<40, 40–60, >60) using Kruskal-Wallis testing. Similarly, association with biological sex was tested using Mann-Whitney U testing. Biological sex did not demonstrate an impact on any measures of cerebrovascular reactivity. Linear regression between age and PAx and RAC demonstrated a statistically significant positive linear relationship. Median PAx and RAC measures between trichotomized age categories demonstrated statistically significant increases with advancing age. The PRx failed to demonstrate any statistically significant relationship with age in this cohort, suggesting that in elderly patients with controlled ICP, PAx and RAC may be better metrics for detecting impaired cerebrovascular reactivity. Biological sex appears to not be associated with differences in cerebrovascular reactivity in this cohort. The PRx performed the worst in detecting impaired cerebrovascular reactivity in those with advanced age, where PAx and RAC appear to have excelled. Future work is required to validate these findings and explore the utility of different cerebrovascular reactivity indices.
Highlights
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and death in young people globally and occurs across a spectrum of severity
Direct continuous bedside assessment of cerebral autoregulation is complex, recent advances in biomedical signal processing of data from multi-modal monitoring (MMM) in moderate/severe TBI have facilitated the development of surrogate measures, some of which are referred to as cerebrovascular reactivity metrics
Given the limited available literature, we aimed to explore the association between various age groups and biological sex and how these separately impact continuously measured cerebrovascular reactivity in adult patients with moderate/severe TBI during the acute phase of their intensive care unit (ICU) stay
Summary
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and death in young people globally and occurs across a spectrum of severity. Cerebral autoregulation refers to the change in cerebral blood vessel tone in response to changes in cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) to maintain constant cerebral blood flow.[8] direct continuous bedside assessment of cerebral autoregulation is complex, recent advances in biomedical signal processing of data from multi-modal monitoring (MMM) in moderate/severe TBI have facilitated the development of surrogate measures, some of which are referred to as cerebrovascular reactivity metrics. It must be acknowledged, that these derived metrics encompass additional cerebral physiological information beyond that of pure cerebrovascular reactivity
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
