Traumatic brain injury:A case-based review

BACKGROUND:Traumatic brain injuries are common and costly to hospital systems.Most of the guidelines on management of traumatic brain injuries are taken from the Brain Trauma Foundation Guidelines.This is a review of the current literature discussing the evolving practice of traumatic brain injury.DATA SOURCES:A literature search using multiple databases was performed for articles published through September 2012 with concentration on meta-analyses,systematic reviews,and randomized controlled trials.RESULTS:The focus of care should be to minimize secondary brain injury by surgically decompressing certain hematomas,maintain systolic blood pressure above 90 mmHg,oxygen saturations above 93%,euthermia,intracranial pressures below 20 mmHg,and cerebral perfusion pressure between 60-80 mmHg.CONCLUSION:Much is still unknown about the management of traumatic brain injury.The current practice guidelines have not yet been sufficiently validated,however equipoise is a major issue when conducting randomized control trials among patients with traumatic brain injury.