Mild head injury
Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care
Record ID 32000001725
Swedish
Authors' objectives:
This report presents a critical review of the scientific literature on the care of mild head injury (commotio cerebri) in the acute phase. Current practice involves admitting the patient to a hospital for several days of observation. The hypothesis of this report suggests that it would be better and less costly to directly examine all patients by CT scanning to more quickly identify those with abnormal findings and to allow those who feel well and have normal findings to return home.
Authors' recommendations:
- Approximately 9% of all minor head injury patients who are received at a hospital have abnormal findings based on CT scanning (Evidence grade 1).
- On average, 1% of the patients need neurosurgery or other interventions (Evidence grade 1).
- Mortality is low, 0.1% (Evidence grade 1)
- Of more than 50 000 minor head injury cases studied, only a few showed that early CT findings were normal, and that the patient deteriorated after several days (Evidence grade 2)
- No studies directly compare hospital observation to CT scanning and discharge. Based on large series of patients, the differences between the results of these strategies can be neither proved nor disproved.
- It is not known how many patients need to be admitted for ethical, social, and medical reasons although CT findings may be normal.
- Nothing suggests that risk is greater in children/elderly or in people under the influence of alcohol if CT findings are normal (Evidence grade 2).
- There are no studies addressing patients with coagulation disorders or those on anticoagulation treatment.
Authors' methods:
Systematic review
Details
Project Status:
Completed
URL for project:
http://www.sbu.se/Published
Year Published:
2000
English language abstract:
An English language summary is available
Publication Type:
Not Assigned
Country:
Sweden
MeSH Terms
- Brain Concussion
- Costs and Cost Analysis
- Craniocerebral Trauma
Contact
Organisation Name:
Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services
Contact Address:
P.O. Box 3657, SE-103 59 Stockholm, Sweden. Tel: +46 8 4123200, Fax: +46 8 4113260
Contact Name:
registrator@sbu.se
Contact Email:
registrator@sbu.se
Copyright:
Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care (SBU)
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.