Head injury: complications and management

Considerable effort and substantial funding has gone towards the development of a neuroprotective agent that could be given after brain trauma to reduce mortality and improve functional recovery. There have been many failed or inconclusive studies to date. In Europe two promising studies have been stopped or shelved (Lubeluzole, Janssen-Cilag and BAYx3702, Bayer) and the future of pharmacological neuroprotection after traumatic brain injury is in doubt. Clinicians managing patients with a head injury are therefore left with the detection and prevention of secondary insults to the brain, including the management of medical complications of brain injury, and non-pharmaceutical interventions that might beneficially modify the brain's response to trauma. Of the potential interventions, moderate hypothermia is the most promising.