The risk factors associated with traumatic subdural effusion for patients with traumatic brain injury who did not undergo decompressive craniectomy

Abstract

Purpose: The main aim of this study was to investigate the risk factors of traumatic subdural effusion (TSE) development in traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients who did not undergo decompressive craniectomy (DC).

Methods: This is a retrospective study based on a database of patients treated in a single institution from January 2020 to January 2022. The clinical and demographic characteristics of the enrolled patients, including gender, age, Glasgow Coma Scale score at admission, characteristics of the initial CT scan on admission, mechanism of injury and the mannitol treatment were recorded retrospectively.

Results: Two hundred fifty-four patients with TBI who did not receive DC were enrolled in this study. Among them, 78 (30.71%) patients were assigned to the TSE group, while 176 patients (69.29%) without TSE were assigned to the control group. Univariate analysis showed that patients in the TSE group were more likely to be male (p = 0.019), older (p < 0.001), have a subarachnoid haemorrhage (p = 0.016) and have a basal cistern haemorrhage (p = 0.014). Logistic regression analysis identified that older age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.056, p < 0.001), presence of subarachnoid haemorrhage (OR = 2.022, p = 0.018) and presence of basal cistern haemorrhage (OR = 2.861, p = 0.027) were risk factors independently associated with the development of TSE.

Conclusion: Our results showed that older age, presence of subarachnoid haemorrhage and presence of basal cistern haemorrhage were risk factors independently associated with the development of TSE for TBI patients without DC.

Keywords: Decompressive craniectomy; Risk factor; Subdural hygroma; Traumatic brain injury; Traumatic subdural effusion.