DIAGNOSIS AND MANAGEMENT OF COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY IN HEAD INJURY

Abstract

Introduction: In human body there are many causes of the injuries. Among all the injuries head injury is also one of the most important injuries which may cause morbidity and mortality. Craniocerebral injuries or Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is defined as any structural skull traumatic injury with alterations of cerebral physiology as a result of an external force either in the form of chemical energy, mechanical energy, electrical energy or thermal heating. Globally craniocerebral injuries or Traumatic brain injury (TBI)is cause of disability in young patients, especially those\xa0 <40 years of age. TBI is classified as mild, with most showing adequate and quick recovery. Nevertheless there are some kinds of TBI which showed persistent disabling symptoms that interrupt with their normal daily routine activities. Brain imaging is very important for the patients who suffer traumatic brain injury. In the emergency services Computed tomography (CT) is recommended as first assessment that provides initial information and diagnosis to identify the need of surgery. It also helps in the following of the patient and the evolution of pathology. Many studies suggest that CT can be used to predict patient outcomes. Computed tomography (CT) is an imaging technique which uses as dynamics of injected contrast material, allows rapid quantitative and qualitative evaluation of cerebral perfusion by generating cerebral blood volume (CBV), cerebral blood flow (CBF) and mean transit time (MTT) maps providing clinically important information with stroke subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH)and head injury. \nAim: The main aim of this study is to evaluate the computed tomography findings sustaining head injury and role of computed tomography scan in head injury. \nMaterial and Methods: During the study total 90 patients with head injury were included with different age group from 20 to 70 years old. Glasgow coma score (GCS) range 4–15 (mild head injury: GCS >14; moderate head injury: GCS = 9–13; severe head injury GCS <8) were also included in this study. For all the patients with head injury Computed tomography (CT) image were performed with siemen s somatom spirit dual slice spiral CT machine and a protocol of contiguous axial 5-mm sections through the posterior fossa and a contiguous 10 mm axial sequential scans for the rest of the brain and thinner cuts were also taken whenever required. For visualize any fractures of the skull bone algorithms with wide window settings were studied. After initial resuscitation, severity of the cranio-cerebral trauma was graded with the help of Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) into mild head injury (GCS13- 15), moderate head injury (GCS 9-12) and severe head injury (GCS 3-8). \nResult: Among total patients sixty five (72.2%) patients were male and twenty five (27.8 %) were female with age range from 20 to 70 years old. In the age group 31-50 year group showed highest frequency of head trauma. The most common causes of head injury were RTA (65.6%) followed by fall injuries (20%) and physical assaults (14.4%). Among patients with head injuries Loss of consciousness and vomiting were the commonest clinical features brought to emergency. Out of 90 cases 59 (65.5%) cases showed mild head injury followed by 14(15.6%) cases sustained moderate head injury and 17(18.9%) had severe head injury. In all types of severity of head injury RTA was the prime etiological factor. Out of total cases 31(34.4%) had normal CT findings and 59(65.6%) had abnormal CT findings. Abnormal CT findings were seen in 59(65.6%) sustaining mild head injury and in all the patients with moderate and severe head injury. Out of 90 cases 13 cases with severe head injury had mortality. The most common mode of injury to cause the mortality was RTA. Five patients with severe head injury also had cervical spine injury \nConclusion: This study concludes that use of CT in head trauma can finds high prevalence of head trauma related to CT. Therefore CT should be done when clinically necessary that helps to reduce cost and avoids unnecessary exposure to radiation. \nKeywords: Head injury, Traumatic brain injury (TBI), computed tomography (CT), Glasgow coma scale (GCS)