Objectives: Head injury is a devastating condition in developing countries like South Africa, contributing significantly to mortality and morbidity. The various factors affecting outcome like age, gender, mechanism of injury, clinical, radiological findings and treatment is reported. Their relation to outcome (Glasgow Outcome Score) of treatment in Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic hospital is analyzed.
Methods: This is a retrospective, descriptive and demographic profile study. The sample group consists of moderate to severe head injury patients admitted in the neurosurgical unit of Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic hospital from January 2011 to June 2012. The data includes age, gender, nature of head injury (scalp, skull, intracranial), mode of injury (fall from height, road traffic accident, fire arm injury, assault, blast injury), condition at presentation [Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS)], pupillary reaction, Computed Tomography (CT) scan findings, treatment received and outcome [Glasgow Outcome Score (GOS)] of treatment.
Results: A total of 292 patients was enrolled in the study, 258 males (88.3%) and 34 females (11.6%). In the age distribution 50 patients were below 19 years, 161 patients were between 20 to 39 years, 60 patients 40 to 59 years and 21 patients above 60 years. The various mechanisms of injury noted were assault in 127 patients, pedestrian vehicular accident in 50 patients, motor vehicular accident in 33 patients, motor bike accidents in 4 patients, train accidents in 2 patients, gunshot injury in 6 patients, fall from height in 35 patients and struck by heavy object in 5 patients.123 patients had a GCS between 3-5, 72 patients GCS between 6-8 and 97 patients GCS 8-12. 192 patients had equal and reacting pupils after the head injury, 52 patients unilateral fixed pupils and 10 patients bilateral fixed pupils. The Computed tomography (CT) of the brain showed 287 patients with focal intracranial findings, 107 with diffuse brain injury and 168 patients with features of raised intracranial pressure. 129 patients (44.1%) were surgically treated and 163 patients (55.8%) treated conservatively with medical treatment. The variables age, mechanism of injury, GCS, pupillary reaction, raised intracranial pressure and type of management was compared to GOS and found to be statistically significant.
Conclusions: The outcome of patients with moderate to severe head injury has no effect on gender but has a significant relationship between age and mortality. The mechanism of head injury has a direct effect on the prognosis with gunshot head having the worst outcome. The important prognostic factors affecting the outcome include: age of patients, severity of head injury (GCS), pupillary reactivity to light and the pathology of the brain CT scan. The unfavorable prognostic factors are: old age, non-reacting pupils to light, severe head injury (low GCS) and raised ICP after head injury. Medical or surgical management have similar mortality rate. / Submitted in fulfillment for the requirements of the degree of
Master of Medicine in Neurosurgery
Faculty of Health Science
University of Witwatersrand
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/17402 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Thomas, Antony |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds