AbstractIntroduction: Head injury is a common reason for an emergency room visit. A large number of people who suffer head injury are predominantly due to road traffic accidents. Other causes of head injury includes fall from height, train traffic accidents and assault. Children do get involved in RTA due to non compliance of the safety measures. Commonest presentation of head injury includes depressed skull fractures, haemorrhage including both extra axial and intra axial, and contusions along with diffuse axanol injury. Majority of the patients involved in head injury require anti-oedema measures and these patients have a significant alterations in their haematological profile post-treatment with anti-oedema measures and this leads on to poor outcome. Aim of the Study: To assess various haematologicalprofile in patients with mild head injury. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study conducted in 2016-2018 in Department of Neurosurgery, Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College, Salem. 45 cases got selected based on the GCS criteria. These patients case sheets were scrutinisedand the following data’s were collected from the case sheets. Age, sex, date of admission, date of surgery (if performed), diagnosis, mode of injury, history of loss of consciousness, vomiting, ENT bleed, seizures, GCS at the time of admission, associated injuries, first CT scan brain findings, other investigations done, haematological profile such as blood glucose, coagulation profile, liver function test, renal function test, and serum electrolytes variations are assessed using standard techniques. Results: In all the patients who were treated for mild head injury with or without antiedema measures, the majority showed metabolic abnormalities. Electrolyte abnormality was present in 14 patients. The altered liver function was present in 15 patients out of the 45 who were treated either in the form of elevated liver enzymes or raised bilirubin levels. Deranged blood sugars were present in more than 50% of the patients and even on continuous monitoring and with insulin therapy, few cases failed to reach glycemic state. 9 Patients of them showed coagulation abnormalities in the form of raised bleeding time, clotting time and with prolonged prothrombin time and INR. Renal parameter abnormality was present in a significant group of patients.
Conclusion: Haematological abnormality was frequently found in patients with mild head injury whether or not they were treated with anti-oedema measures. Although coagulation abnormality was thought to alter the CT findings, only one-third of the deteriorated patients with coagulation abnormality showed positive findings on a CT scan which needs further haematological studies to prove the correlation between the two
Keywords: Blood Glucose; Coagulation Profile; Liver Function Test; Renal Function Test; CT Scan; Head Injury