Systemic Insults in the Early Death after Head Injury.
- Author:
Ho Seung LEE
;
Kyeong Seok LEE
;
Hack Gun BAE
;
Il Gyu YUN
;
In Soo LEE
- Publication Type:Original Article
- Keywords:
Early death;
Systemic insult;
Head injury;
Emergency care
- MeSH:
Arterial Pressure;
Chungcheongnam-do;
Craniocerebral Trauma*;
Emergency Medical Services;
Head*;
Hematocrit;
Humans;
Hydrogen-Ion Concentration;
Retrospective Studies;
Transportation
- From:Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
1990;19(8-9):1101-1106
- CountryRepublic of Korea
- Language:Korean
-
Abstract:
We present a study on the systemic insults in the early death(within one week) after head injury. The patient population consisted of 192 patients who were admitted to the Soonchunhyang University Chonan Hospital from August 1986 to May 1990 after head injury. We collected clinical features and systemic insults including blood pressure, arterial pH, PaO2, PaCO2, hematocrit, and serum concentration of Na, retrospectively. The most common cause of injury was road traffic accident(77.6%). More than half(57.8%) were under the age of 40 years. The interval from injury to admission was within one hour in 63.2%, and within four hours in 91.4%. The mean interval was 1.8 hours. However, in 154(80.2%) patients, we found the evidence of systemic insults on admission. We found hypotension(ststolic less than 90mmHg) in 22.9%, acidemia(pH<7.35) in 71.3%, arterial hypoxemia(PaO2<60mmHg) in 42.7%, hypercarbia(PaCO2>45mmHg) in 28.7%, anemia(hematocrit<30%) in 13.0%, hyponatremia(Na<135mEq/L) in 10.7%, and hypernatremia(Na>145mEq/L) in 11.2%. These results imply that the prehospital emergency care system useful at the scene of accident and during the transportation is more important than the simple quick-transport-system.
