Screening TBI patients with the brain acoustic monitor: Association with CT scan findings and neurologic status at hospital discharge

Abstract

AbstractIntroduction. The catastrophic consequences of failing to diagnose a serious brain injury necessitate early cranial CT scan in any patient presenting with mild or moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI), in order to detect the few who will require intervention to relieve elevated intracranial pressure. Noninvasive assessment of perfusion using the brain acoustic monitor (BAM) takes only a few seconds to perform, and has been shown to correlate with outcome from severe TBI in a population of patients requiring invasive ICP monitoring. We conducted the present study to assess the correlation between BAM signal measured early after admission and subsequent anatomic and functional evidence of TBI, to examine a possible role for the BAM as an adjunct to CT in the prehospital environment or resource-limited Emergency Department (ED). Methods. BAM signal was recorded on admission in 206 TBI patients over a one-year period. The initial BAM signal was characterized as ‘normal’ or ‘abnormal’ based on criteria...