Severe pediatric head injuries (I). Epidemiology, clinical manifestations and course ☆
Abstract Objective To describe the epidemiology, clinical manifestations and evolutive characteristics of pediatric patients with severe head injury (SHI). Material and method A review was made of the patients admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) with SHI between July 1983 and December 2009. Results Of the 389 patients with head injuries admitted to the PICU during the study period, 174 (45%) presented SHI. The mean age in this group was of 67 ± 9 months, with a Glasgow Coma Score (GCS) of 5.5 ± 1.8 and a PRISM score of 10.7 ± 6.7. The most frequent etiology of SHI was traffic accidents (56%), though these have decreased significantly in the last decade (58.5% vs 45.3%; p p p Conclusions (a) The incidence of traffic accidents has decreased in the last decade in the studied population; (b) patients with SHI in which ICP was monitored showed a high incidence of intracranial hypertension; (c) morbidity–mortality among pediatric patients with SHI has decreased over the course of the study period.