Frontal Epidural Haematoma

Background: The epidural haematoma is the most important space-occupying lesion due to head injury with high index of mortality and morbidity when the correct management is not done. Frontal epidural haematoma are considered rare lesions, representing about 10% of the whole epidural haematomas. They are usually unilateral and may present with subacute and chronic evolution in 40% of the cases. Objective: To study thirty cases of frontal epidural haematoma andanalyze the causes, clinical findings, evolution, and outcome. Patients and Methods: Thirty patients presenting with frontal epidure hematomas were retrospectively reviewed. The age ranged from 10 to 32 years old, with a mean of 18 years-old. Main causes were traffic accidents and falls. Results: In therewere 24 male patients and six female cases the haematoma was bilateral. Acute collection occurred in 19 cases, subacute in 5 and chronic in 6 of them. The most important clinical findings were headaches, vomiting and seizures. Skull x-raysdetected fracture in 18 cases and computed tomography was positive in demonstrating the haematoma. In all surgery cases was carried out in 28 patients and two cases had been submitted to conservative treatment. Two patients died in consequence of associated intracerebral and extracerebral lesions. Conclusions: 1) usually frontal epidural haematomas are more frequent in young adults; 2) its evolution is slow, usually subacute or chronic, in the majority of the cases; 3) its clinical findings course with few neurological symptoms and 4) the prognosis is good, except in those cases with multiple intracranial lesions or systemic injury.