[Clinical presentation and gross appearance of diffuse axonal injury in the early post-injury period]

The objective of the study was to investigate and characterize the clinical presentation, and establish macroscopic diagnostic signs of diffuse axonal injury (DAI) in the early (up to 3 days) post-injury period. In DAI, coma develops immediately after head injury and persists for 3 days post-injury until death. The coma is accompanied by dominant primary stem neurological symptoms, hemodynamic and respiratory disturbances and does not progress to a vegetative state. Lifetime computed tomography reveals cerebral hemorrhage in 40.5% of cases. We established the macroscopic signs of head injury in DAI. For the postmortem diagnosis of DAI, a detailed macroscopic appearance of pathognomonic cerebral hemorrhages is given, which are most frequently (67.5%) localized in the corpus callosum (CC), namely in the area from its genu to the middle of the trunk (97%). A rational, improved scheme of excision of CC trunk areas for the histological study is proposed.