Occurrence of severe and moderate traumatic brain injury in patients attended in a Brazilian Teaching Hospital: epidemiology and dosage of alcoholemy

Abstract

This study aimed at observing aspects of epidemiology in order to investigate the use of alcohol in patients older than 18 with severe and moderate traumatic brain injury, which were attended in the Clinics Hospital of the University of Uberlândia. Positive alcoholemy was found in 39.3% of the patients. Of the 33 positive exams alcoholemy was found higher than 60 mg/dL in 28 (84.6%). There was not significant relation between alcoholemy levels and trauma severity. The major prevalence occurred on Saturdays nights. The most frequent types of external causes were transportation accidents (64.74) followed by accidental falls (17.27%) and physical aggression (16.55%). 93.9% of the patients with positive alcoholemy were men aged 20-29. 24.2% of the ones with positive alcoholemy died yet no significant difference was found in the study of the ones with negative alcoholemy (n=51) (p=0.93); RR= 0.9; IC95%=0.40-2.08.

Epidemiology of traumatic brain injury in Brazil

“…Certainly, they help to reduce the severity and mortality of TBI, but they were not effective in reducing the number of hospitalizations. 18 Possibly, the use of alcohol associated with vehicle driving 12,17 and in particular the use of motorcycles has maintained TBI as a common event among trauma resulting from traffic accidents. In this study, the accidents involving motorcycles were the circumstance for TBI that led to the biggest increase in the number of hospitalizations, almost tripling between 2001 and 2007.…”

“…Brazilian 5,8 and international 3,9,10 studies have demonstrated that men and young people are frequently more affected by TBI. Many studies describe those circumstances, although the ones that were based on populational data 3,5,11 have defined the falls as the main circumstance for TBI, while the ones that used data collected from trauma centers have described the traffic accidents as the main cause of this pathology, both in Brazil 8,12 and in other countries. 9,10 However, the studies that have focused only on the number of cases attended at emergency rooms or the hospitalizations do not trustworthily represent the factors associated to occurrence or severity of TBI, because such researches do not contemplate the majority of the skull trauma centers, but only some reference centers.…”

The Epidemiology of Traumatic Brain Injury Due to Traffic Accidents in Latin America: A Narrative Review

“…The range across the seven studies was from 75 to 94% male. 4 The study with the largest sample size was a Brazilian study with 800 motor vehicle-associated TBI. In that, automobile accident was the most frequent.…”

“…2 Latin America is a region particularly in need of study. Despite knowing overall mortality from RTA in this area and Jack Dunne 1 Gabriel Alexander Quiñones-Ossa 2, Ethne Grey Still 3 María N. Suarez 4 José A. González-Soto 5 David S. Vera 6 Andrés M. Rubiano 2,7, that TBI is a common sequela of RTA, there are few studies on the impact of RTA on TBI in the Latin American region. 3 Without these data, it is hard to know the extent of the problem, and to direct resources toward the acute care and rehabilitation of TBI victims.…”

Aspectos funcionais da deglutição na população com trauma cranioencefálico

“…Como principais causas do TCE, podemos citar os acidentes de trânsito (colisão e atropelamento), quedas e agressões físicas, sendo que as quedas ocorrem em sua maioria na população idosa, e os acidentes de trânsito e agressões são mais frequentes em adultos jovens 6 . Quando consideramos a causa do trauma, um estudo realizado no Brasil indicou maior ocorrência de acidentes de transporte (64,74%), seguidos de quedas acidentais (17,27%) e de agressões (16,55%) 7 . Alguns autores referem que o TCE é uma das principais causas de mortalidade e incapacidade mundial 8,9,10,11 .…”