New Directions in Research and Therapies in Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant cause of disability and death and its incidence is rising in some specific populations. TBI can result in various disabilities, cognitive problems and psychiatric disorders, depending on the location of the injury and premorbid patient conditions. Effective pharmacological and surgical treatments, however, are currently limited. Most randomised clinical trials for TBI treatments carried out to date have failed to show significant benefits. Initiatives such as the TRACK-TBI have highlighted the large variability in TBI treatment quality at different hospitals and widely differing death rates. This stimulated the establishment of the International Initiative for TBI Research (InTIBR), which aims to improve disease characterisation and patient management. The development of effective treatments for TBI and their evaluation requires an understanding of the complex neuroregenerative processes that follow an injury. In the case of haematoma in TBI, decompressive craniectomy can be a life-saving intervention but must be performed rapidly. The neurotrophic agent, Cerebrolysin®, acts by mimicking neurotrophic factors (NTFs) and by stimulating the endogenous production of NTF in brain tissue. Experimental models show that this drug increases neurogenesis following TBI but these findings need to be converted into clinical practice. The potential of Cerebrolysin in TBI was demonstrated in a large retrospective cohort trial in Romania (n=7,769 adults). Cerebrolysin significantly improved Glasgow Outcome Scores (GOS) and respiratory distress (RDS) in patients with moderate or severe TBI at 10 and 30 days compared with controls. This and other experimental treatments have potential in TBI but, in developing such therapies, the design of clinical trials should closely reflect the reality of biological processes underlying natural recovery from brain injury.