Comparison of traumatic brain injury patients with brain computed tomography in the emergency department by age group

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an important public health concern due to its high prevalence and mortality rate among young people. We investigated the clinical and social characteristics of patients who visited the emergency department due to TBI in whom brain computed tomography, was performed by age.

We retrospectively analyzed 15,567 TBI patients who received a brain computed tomography evaluation at the emergency department of Korea University Hospital from March 2013 to February 2016. We divided patients into age groups by decade and analyzed factors such as sex, trauma mechanism, need for operation, hospitalization, and results of treatment.

The mean age was 42.0±22.8 years; the most common age group was the 50s (16.5%). Except for the age group over 70 years, males predominated. Under 9 years of age, public ambulance usage rate was lower than in other age groups. Regarding severity based on the Glasgow Coma Scale score, the proportion of mild cases was higher in those under 9 years of age (99.3%) and the proportion of severe cases was higher in those in their 20s (4.6%). The most common injury mechanism was blunt trauma, followed by car accidents. For those under 9 years of age, falls were more common than in other age groups. Only 20.5% of TBI patients were hospitalized and 11.9% were treated surgically, while 70.6% of patients were discharged home after treatment.

TBI may present with different characteristics depending on the age of the patients, thus prevention policies and clinical practice should be tailored to age.