OBJECTIVES

Blunt cervical vascular injuries, often missed with current screening methods, have substantial morbidity and mortality, and there is a need for improved screening. Elucidation of cerebral hemodynamic alterations may facilitate serial bedside monitoring and improved management. Thus, the objective of this study was to define cerebral flow alterations associated with single blunt cervical vascular injuries using transcranial Doppler sonography and subsequent Doppler waveform analyses in a trauma population.

METHODS

In this prospective pilot study, patients with suspected blunt cervical vascular injuries had diagnoses by computed tomographic angiography and were examined using transcranial Doppler sonography to define cerebral hemodynamics. Multiple vessel injuries were excluded for this analysis, as the focus was to identify hemodynamic alterations from isolated injuries. The inverse damping factor characterized altered extracranial flow patterns; middle cerebral artery flow velocities, the pulsatility index, and their asymmetries characterized altered intracranial flow patterns.

RESULTS

Twenty-three trauma patients were evaluated: 4 with single internal carotid artery injuries, 5 with single vertebral artery injuries, and 14 without blunt cervical vascular injuries. All internal carotid artery injuries showed a reduced inverse damping factor in the internal carotid artery and dampened ipsilateral mean flow and peak systolic velocities in the middle cerebral artery. Vertebral artery injuries produced asymmetry of a similar magnitude in the middle cerebral artery mean flow velocity with end-diastolic velocity alterations.

CONCLUSIONS

These data indicate that extracranial and intracranial hemodynamic alterations occur with internal carotid artery and vertebral artery blunt cervical vascular injuries and can be quantified in the acute injury phase by transcranial Doppler indices. Further study is required to elucidate cerebral flow changes resulting from a single blunt cervical vascular injury, which may guide future management to preserve cerebral perfusion after trauma.