Utility of CT in Head Injury- A Prospective Study

Background: Head injury is defined as an impairment in brain function as a result of mechanical force. The dysfunction can be temporary or permanent, and may or may not result in underlying structural changes in the brain. Head injuries are a major public health problem worldwide. A limited amount of neurological damage occurs at the time of impact (primary injury). Subjects and Methods: The study was a prospective observational study took place in the Department of Radiology, over a 8 month period which involves all type of head injuries. Informed consent was obtained by the subjects who participated in the study. All head injury patients attending the emergency department were included, while those with no clear history of trauma as the primary event and neurologic deficit that could not be explained by head trauma were excluded. Results:  A total of 1000 patients underwent CT for a head injury. Table 1 shows baseline characteristics as age, gender, referred cases, type  of injury, mode of injury and clinical features where we observed 48.2% cases were in the age group between 21-40 years with 80% of male subjects. While observing for the mode of injury, we found most of the cases falls in the category of road traffic accidents (77%) with external injury (83.5%) and loss of consciousness (63.4%) as highly observed clinical features. Conclusion: This study showed a significant association of overall CT positivity with patients sociodemographic and clinical factors such as: male gender, elderly age group (>60 years), history of alcohol consumption, LOC >5 min, history of vomiting, history of seizures, evidence of ear bleed, evidence of nosebleed, and GCS 12 (moderate and Severe head injury). From the results of this study, we recommend the following indications for doing CT in head injury patients: (1) CT is indicated in all patients with moderate and severe head injury (GCS ≤12).