Early prediction of outcome from cerebral trauma by somatosensory evoked potentials

How reliable is the predictive value of SEP (somatosensory evoked potentials) patterns in severe brain damage with special regard to the bilateral loss of cortical responses?

“…It is possible that the predominant neuroradiological finding of traumatic brainstem injury, as in our case, might have different implications for structural and functional recovery of the central somatosensory system compared to diffuse cerebral hypoxia. This hypothesis is in perfect agreement with results of other recent studies, which, by a systematic analysis (overview, Table 3), show that in quite a few cases of traumatic coma the initial BLCR pattern did not exclude regaining consciousness and recovery from severe neurological deficit [1,2,18,19]. Summarizing all cases including our own patient, we found 16 patients reported who underline the exceptions of the prognostic rule.…”

Severe brain injury in children: long-term outcome and its prediction using somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs)

“…In the remaining 105 children SEPs were recorded within the first week of admission (median 16.8 h, range 1±163.5 h). Causes of brain injury were trauma (40), hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (38), infection (18) and other (9). The latter group included haemorrhage (6), emboli (1), cerebral vasculitis secondary to haemolytic uremic syndrome (1) and septic shock (1).…”

“…They have been shown to be more powerful than electroencephalograms [24, 36±39] and are superior to clinical signs and measures such as cranial nerve and motor responses [36,40,41], and the Glasgow Coma Score [18,21,42,43]. They can also be performed in clinical situations that prevent the performance of these other tests.…”

Prevalence of persistent vegetative state in patients with severe traumatic brain injury and its trend during the past four decades: A meta-analysis

“…After 2324 duplications removed, 1930 additional articles were excluded on the basis of their titles or abstracts, resulting in the full text of 341 articles being examined. Finally, 20 articles reporting 21 cohort studies were included in the present analysis (Andriessen et al, 2011;Fearnside, Cook, McDougall, & McNeil, 1993;Foulkes, Eisenberg, Jane, Marmarou, & Marshall, 1991;Gomez et al, 2000;Heiden, Small, Caton, Weiss, & Kurze, 1983;Jourdan et al, 2013;Judson, Cant, & Shaw, 1990;Lannoo et al, 2000;Mamelak, Pitts, & Damron, 1996;; L. S. Myburgh et al, 2008;Nordstrom, Messeter, Sundbarg, & Wahlander, 1989;Pang et al, 2007;Petroni et al, 2010;Rusnak, Janciak, Majdan, Wilbacher, & Mauritz, 2007;Selladurai, Jayakumar, Tan, & Low, 1992;Stranjalis et al, 2008;Turazzi, Bricolo, & Pasut, 1984;Turazzi, Bricolo, Pasut, & Formenton, 1987). A flow diagram of the selection process is presented in Fig.…”