IMPACT database of traumatic brain injury: design and description

The objective of this report is to describe the design and content of the International Mission for Prognosis And Clinical Trial (IMPACT) database of traumatic brain injury which contains the complete dataset from most clinical trials and organized epidemiologic studies conducted over the past 20 years. This effort, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, has led to the accumulation thus far of data from 9205 patients with severe and moderate brain injuries from eight randomized placebo controlled trials and three observational studies. Data relevant to the design and analysis of pragmatic Phase III clinical trials, including pre-hospital, admission, and post-resuscitation assessments, information on the acute management, and short- and long-term outcome were merged into a top priority data set (TPDS). The major emphasis during the first phase of study is on information from time of injury to post-resuscitation and outcome at 6 months thereby providing a unique resource for prognostic analysis and for studies aimed at optimizing the design and analysis of Phase III trials in traumatic brain injury.