Study design: Definitive and unequivocal evidence to support the practice of early or late surgery is still lacking in clinical studies. Accordingly, meta-analysis is one of the few methods that offer a rational, statistical approach to management decision. A review of the clinical literature on spinal cord injury with emphasis on the role of early surgical decompression and a meta-analysis of results was performed. Objectives: To determine whether neurological outcome is improved in traumatic spinal cordinjured patients who had surgery within 24 h as compared with those who had late surgery or conservative treatment. Methods: A Medline search covering the period 1966-2000, supplemented with manual search, was used to locate studies containing information on indication, rationale and timing of surgical decompression after spinal cord injuries. The analysis included a total of 1687 eligible patients. Results: Statistically, early decompression resulted in better outcome compared with both conservative (Po0.001) and late management (Po0.001). Nevertheless, analysis of homogeneity showed that only data regarding patients with incomplete neurological deficits who had early surgery were reliable. Conclusions: Although statistically the percentage of patients with incomplete neurological deficits improving after early decompression appear 89.7% (95% confidence interval: 83.9, 95.5%), to be better than with the other modes of treatment when taking into consideration the material available for analysis and the various other factors including clinical limitations; early surgical decompression can only be considered as practice option for all groups of patients.
Although recent advances in medical and management strategies have reduced the mortality and morbidity rates related to subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), patients who survive a SAH may remain nevertheless affected by persistent cognitive and neuropsychological disturbances. The presence of these deficits has been attributed to the neurotoxic effects of the widespread subarachnoid blood. To assess the long-term neuropsychological and cognitive outcome related to subarachnoid blood extravasation per se we evaluated 20 patients affected by an unknown origin subarachnoid haemorrhage, and having SAH characteristics generally considered predictive of a favourable outcome. Patients were enrolled after a one-year interval from the initial insult, and were selected accordingly to a pre-designed protocol. We employed a complete battery of tests, assessing general cognitive and language functions, memory and construction ability, attention and vigilance, anxiety and depression. The results were compared with normal reference values and with performances of a socio-demographically homogenous sample of control volunteers. This study did not evidence any significant long-term cognitive and neuropsychological alteration after subarachnoid blood extravasation. These results indicate that the presence of subarachnoid blood initiate a number of secondary mechanisms of pathology.
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