Optimising traumatic brain injury (TBI) outcomes in children

Monitoring pressure of cerebral blood vessels in children with
TBI may improve outcomes. Image: stmaryskids.org

An Alfred-Monash collaboration led by recent Department of Surgery PhD graduate Dr Phil Lewis, with the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne and Cambridge University (UK), has published a study on children with traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBI is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in children.
The team investigated the pressure reactivity (PR) of cerebral blood vessels in these patients using a technique developed at Cambridge. Disturbance of PR is common after TBI in adults and is predictive of poor outcome, but has not been well studied in children. They found that loss of pressure reactivity was significantly associated with worse outcome, and that continuous monitoring of PR could enable an individualised approach to blood pressure targeting.

Reference: Lewis PM, Czosnyka M, Carter BG, Rosenfeld JV, Paul E, Singhal N, Butt W. Cerebrovascular pressure reactivity in children With traumatic brain injury. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. 16(8):739-749, October 2015