Options for cerebral protection after penetrating head injury

The medical management of secondary brain injury is entering a new era in which the fruits of labor in the laboratory are paying off in the form of legitimate agents for use in human trials. As more about pathophysiology of traumatic-ischemic brain injury becomes known, more effective means for pharmacologic intervention and neuronal salvage will emerge, and optimism is high that we are approaching an era that will witness improvements in functional survival that have been heretofore unwitnessed.