Serial Computerized Tomographic Scanning and the Prognosis of Severe Head Injury

Abstract

Serial (two or three) computerized tomographic (CT) scans were performed on a series of 58 patients with severe head injury. The protocol called for scans to be done upon admission and on Days 3 and 7 after injury. New lesions (i.e., lesions not visualized on the initial CT scans but appearing on subsequent scans) were a frequent finding, occurring in over half of all patients. For the purposes of this study a new lesion was classified as edema involving two or more lobes, extra-axial hematoma, parenchymal hemorrhage, or infarction. Significant correlation was found between good outcome and the absence of new lesions and between bad outcome and the development of new lesions (p < 0.001). Several patients did well in spite of the development of new lesions, but these patients were unique in that most had small, unilateral parenchymal hematomas located at or near the frontal or temporal poles. In most cases, patients who did poorly in spite of not developing new lesions had severe injuries visualized on their initial scans (massive intracerebral hematoma, hemorrhage of the corpus callosum) or succumbed to medical complications. The pertinent literature is reviewed, and other CT findings associated with a poor prognosis are noted. The authors suggest that serial CT scanning may be used to make prognostic assessments in severely head-injured patients and may be of value in increasing the confidence in and accuracy of assessments made on clinical grounds alone.