Neuromonitoring in the severe traumatic brain injury. Spanish Trauma ICU Registry (RETRAUCI)

To analyze the use of intracranial pressure (ICP) and cerebral oximetry monitoring in patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) according to the Spanish Trauma ICU Registry (RETRAUCI).

We included TBI patients with Glasgow Coma Scale score ≤ 8. Hypotheses were tested using the Student-T or Wilcoxon tests (quantitative variables) and the Chi-square test (categorical variables). Multivariate analysis using logistic regression was performed to analyze the variables associated with the use of ICP monitoring.

We analyzed 1463 patients. Age 49.1 years. Males 1130 (77.3%). Mechanism of injury: falls in 350 cases (23.9%). Injury Severity Score 27.9. Uni- or bilateral mydriasis was present in 39.3% of the patients. Neurosurgical intervention within 24hours was performed in 331 patients (22.7%). ICP was monitored in 635 patients (45.1%), pbtO2 in 122 patients (8.6%), SjVO₂ in 19 patients (1.34%) and NIRS was used in 25 cases (1.77%). In the multivariate analysis, age, bilateral mydriasis at admission and previous use of antiplatelets or anticoagulants was inversely related with ICP monitoring. Severity of injury and the need of neurosurgical intervention increased the probability of ICP monitoring.

Our study shows a picture of ICP monitoring in severe TBI patients in our environment. Use of cerebral oximetry techniques is very limited.