Diagnostic possibilities of closed head injuries of acceleration type using computed tomography.

A group of 42 patients with closed head injuries of acceleration type is reported. All of them were treated at various departments of the General Hospital in Maribor. The aim of investigation was to find out the diagnostic possibilities of head and brain damages in closed head injuries of acceleration type by the method of computed tomography (CT) and making comparison with the clinical picture of each individual patient. The patients were not investigated at random but were grouped in accordance with the direction of traumatic force action. The CT analyses were performed according to characteristic patterns of traumatic brain disease. The circumstances of head injury were reliable guidelines for devoting more attention to some brain areas. The density of each lesion was examined, too. The investigation has shown that lesions of "inner cerebral trauma" pattern (ICT-Grcević 1965) are visible on CT at least as often as coup-contrecoup lesions or even more. Only in cases with latero-lateral direction of traumatizing force (control group) coup-contrecoup lesions were found more frequently. Deep cerebral lesions of the latero-lateral type of acceleration head trauma were never or seldom encountered.