Predictors of Mortality Among Patients With Head Trauma

Head injuries are a major cause of morbidity and mortality through out the world. It is estimated that 69 million people suffer from Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) from all cases per year .

Current estimates suggest that about 4.48 million people lose their lives due to injuries which accounts for 8% of all deaths globally. Of these, an estimated 2 million deaths were attributed to the TBI, and the burden was concentrated in developing countries due to limited access to advanced life-sustaining measures after trauma .

In low-and middle-income countries, head injury patients have worse outcomes than patients in high-income countries . Several studies in Africa have found that death rates from head injury range from 4.2% to 35% .

Evidence suggests that the possible causes for the high mortality rate could be older age, male gender,low GCS, and cause of injuries are likely non-modifiable risk factors and hypoxia, hypotension, hyperthermia, hypo or hyperglycemia, and did not undergo surgery or poor adherence to management guidelines are possible modifiable risk factors .

Clinical presentation of patients and advanced rescue care by emergency teams are crucial factors to determining favorable outcomes. Accordingly, non-surgical management should emphases on rapid transportation, avoiding hypotension and hypoxia, hyperthermia, and medical management to reduce brain edema .

Accurate determination of the prognosis is crucial for the practitioners, in order to optimize and personalize treatment strategies. There is a degree of uncertainty in clinicians' expectations of patient outcomes, and prognostic models can help improve these expectations by providing probabilities of specific outcomes. Compared with the experience of physicians to judge the prognosis of patients, objective prognostic models would be able to give more accurate projections about specific variables such as number of hospitalizations and deaths .

The predictors of mortality modules used are GCS, APACHE II and RTS scores. GCS provides an objective recording of the state of consciousness of a person, which is the only variable referring to brain function in the APACHE II score. APACHE II score was primarily designed to predict mortality in ICUs. The famous models: the International Mission for Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials (IMPACT) model and the Corticosteroid Randomization After Significant Head Injury (CRASH) model were weighted towards mixed TBI (moderate and severe TBI).

The management of TBI patients should be followed intracranial pressure monitoring is suggested to reduce post-traumatic death in the hospital within two weeks .

Unfortunately, pre hospital care is not well established and hospitals are not well equipped;this can increase the risk of secondary brain injury due to hypotension and hypoxia .