OUTCOME OF SEVERE BRAIN INJURY - A MULTIMODALITY NEUROPHYSIOLOGIC STUDY

We screened all head-injured trauma patients admitted to Lehigh Valley Hospital during a 2-year period, From 725 screened patients, 69 patie nts in a coma on the second day after trauma were entered into this st udy, During the first week, these patients underwent electroencephalog raphy (EEG), evoked potentials, ocular pneumoplethysmography, and tran scranial Doppler (TCD) sonography. Clinical examinations were undertak en 2 and 7 days after trauma, Test results were correlated with functi onal clinical outcome at 6 months, In a multiple regression analysis, EEG was the major independent variable that significantly predicted 6- month outcome based on Glasgow Outcome Scale score. Transcranial Doppl er sonography contributed a small additional component, Though EEG was the most significant predictive factor in this neurophysiological bat tery, it did not add significantly to the predictive power of Glasgow Coma Scale score determined at day 7, These findings suggest that neur ophysiologic testing in this type of patient is not useful in improvin g predictive outcome data.