The contribution of brain injury to the overall injury severity of brain-injured patients.

Several recent population-based studies of the incidence of head injury have identified cases by screening hospitalized patients. This method assumes a close relationship between severity of head injury and overall injury severity, since it is the latter that determines hospital admission. Thus, a patient whose overall injury severity is high will be admitted to the hospital regardless of the degree of his head injury. Similarly, since a patient's outcome status after treatment depends on his response to all his injuries, studies of the prognosis of various types of head injury also assume a close relationship between head injury severity and overall injury severity. The present study examines the relationship between brain injury severity and overall injury severity in a series of hospitalized head-injured patients with evidence of actual or probable brain trauma. Among these patients, brain injury severity was closely related to overall injury severity. Head injury severity and head and neck injury severity were also closely related to overall injury severity. For all other body regions, injury severity was not closely related to overall injury severity in this group of patients.