Paediatric traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Introduction. Traumatic brain injury is a leading cause of death and disability among children, adolescents. Therefore, analysing outcome predictors and initiating preventive policies may contribute to decreased incidence and better prognosis.
 Aim. Aim to describe the epidemiologic characteristics, mechanism of injury, radiological findings and also to analyse the determinants of outcome that could help to provide better critical care and also to establish effective preventive policies.
 Material and Methods. We conducted a prospective study including patients ?18 years admitted to our Neuro-intensive care unit at R.N.T. Medical College ,Udaipur, Rajasthan, India from September 2016 to June 2018.Factors including age, gender ,mode of injury, Glasgow coma score(GCS) at admission ,pupillary size-reaction, radiological findings and their relation to outcome was assessed .Patients were divided into mild, moderate and severe head injury according to GCS. Outcome of patients was assessed by Glasgow outcome scale. For statical Analysis used Chisquare test. Statistical Analysis was carried out using Stata 11.0(College station, Texas, USA)
 Results. The study comprised of 84 paediatric patients. 44.4%of patients were within 1–5-year age group. The most common cause for trauma was falls and traffic accidents. Patients with mild, moderate and severe head injury were 38.1%, 47.6%and 14.3% respectively. Poor outcome predictors included severity of head injury, pupil size and reaction, midline shift on CT.
 Conclusion. This study emphasizes increased burden of paediatric brain injury with assessment of predicting factors for more effective critical care of patients and emerging need for effective fall and traffic accidents prevention strategies.