The burden of traumatic brain injury from low-energy falls among patients from 18 countries in the CENTER-TBI Registry: A comparative cohort study

by Fiona E. Lecky, Olubukola Otesile, Carl Marincowitz, Marek Majdan, Daan Nieboer, Hester F. Lingsma, Marc Maegele, Giuseppe Citerio, Nino Stocchetti, Ewout W. Steyerberg, David K. Menon, Andrew I. R. Maas, CENTER-TBI Participants and Investigators BackgroundTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is an important global public health burden, where those injured by high-energy transfer (e.g., road traffic collisions) are assumed to have more severe injury and are prioritised by emergency medical service trauma triage tools. However recent studies suggest an increasing TBI disease burden in older people injured through low-energy falls. We aimed to assess the prevalence of low-energy falls among patients presenting to hospital with TBI, and to compare their characteristics, care pathways, and outcomes to TBI caused by high-energy trauma. Methods and findingsWe conducted a comparative cohort study utilising the CENTER-TBI (Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in TBI) Registry, which recorded patient demographics, injury, care pathway, and acute care outcome data in 56 acute trauma receiving hospitals across 18 countries (17 countries in Europe and Israel). Patients presenting with TBI and indications for computed tomography (CT) brain scan between 2014 to 2018 were purposively sampled. The main study outcomes were (i) the prevalence of low-energy falls causing TBI within the overall cohort and (ii) comparisons of TBI patients injured by low-energy falls to TBI patient...
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research