Intracranial pressure monitoring with the fiberoptic transducer in children.

Observations on 52 patients with continuous intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring are reported. The authors used a fiberoptic epidural transducer with digital readout and paper-recording facilities in the intensive care unit of a children's hospital. They confirm the reports of others that [1] ICP monitoring is an extremely useful aid in the management of patients in coma and that [2] epidural pressure measurement is a safe and accurate method. No infection occurred in this series nor were there any other complications arising from the epidural method of ICP monitoring. Apart from three episodes of breakage of the transducer cable, they did not encounter technical difficulties with the system.