The initial factors affecting in-hospital mortality rate of patients undergoing surgery for post-traumatic...

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is one of the most important causes of disability and death among young adults and referred to as "silent" epidemic. The most frequent consequences of a TBI are extra-axial hematomas, comprising of acute subdural (SDH) and epidural hematoma (EDH). Most of the factors affecting the mortality have been analyzed in a wide group of TBI. The aim of this study is to identify factors affecting in-hospital mortality in patients undergoing surgery for acute traumatic subdural and epidural hematoma.

The study included 128 patients operated on due to extra-axial hematomas. Twenty-eight patients were operated on for EDH and 100 on for SDH. Patients were treated at the Department of Neurosurgery Medical University in Lublin, during almost three years. The following factors were analyzed: demographic data, physiological factors, laboratory factors, computed tomography scan characteristics and time between the trauma and the surgery. All the factors were correlated with in-hospital mortality rate.

The univariate analysis has confirmed the influence of many factors affecting the in-hospital mortality.

It is interesting that factors such as GSC score, systolic blood pressure, respiratory rate and glycemia were associated with in-hospital mortality rate with highly statistically significant differences (Tab. 3, Fig. 2, Ref. 40).