BACKGROUND

Much attention has been focused on management of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI); however, comparatively little is known about management of traumatic hemorrhage in clinically mild TBI. We aimed to clarify the role of clinical observation and repeat radiography for patients with mild TBI and abnormal findings on initial computed tomography (CT) of the head.

METHODS

We queried the neurotrauma database of the Ontario Trauma Registry and the Sunnybrook institutional database to identify patients with CT findings of a traumatic hemorrhage or calvarial fracture between November 2014 and December 2016. Exclusionary criteria were age less than 16 years, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score less than 13, anticoagulant use, bleeding diathesis and midline shift greater than 5 mm. The primary outcome was the need for neurosurgical intervention.

RESULTS

A total of 607 patients were included. Most (374 [61.6%]) had a GCS score of 15; 185 (30.5%) and 48 (7.9%) had a GCS score of 14 and 13, respectively. Five patients (0.8%) required surgical intervention, all within the first 72 hours, owing to clinical deterioration with subsequently demonstrated radiographic evidence of expanding hemorrhage. Most patients (506 [83.4%]) had routine repeat imaging, without documented change in their neurologic status.

INTERPRETATION

The majority of patients in our cohort had repeat imaging, which did not influence surgical management, at substantial cost to the health care system. The findings suggest the need to reevaluate repeat imaging protocols for this subset of patients with TBI.