Effect of steroid therapy in experimental head trauma.

Since steroid therapy has been mostly utilized on an empirical basis in the management of head injury, this experimental study to assess the efficacy of steroid therapy was performed. Swiss-Webster mice (n = 85) were given 0.2 m of 50% ethanol intraperitoneally (IP) and lightly anaesthetized with ether. Ten randomly chosen mice were set aside and received no further treatment (non-head injury controls: Group A). The remaining mice (n = 75) were subjected to head injury and the survivors at 30 minutes (n = 52) were assigned randomly to two Groups, B and C. Group B was given 0.1 ml of saline IP at 30 minutes, 28 hours and 48 hours post-injury. At similar time intervals, animals in Group C received methylprednisolone 30 mg/kg IP. All animals were observed up to seven days and the number of survivors in each group recorded. All ten animals in Group A survived seven days. The daily mortality in Groups B and C were similar, and all animals were dead at seven days. Steroids were not found to be efficacious in this animals model.