Objective: To evaluate the predictive power of the brain stem reflexes (BSRs) for minimally conscious state in unconscious patients after traumatic brain injury.
Materials and methods: A total of 120 patients with duration of unconsciousness were enrolled in this study. BSRs were recorded 14 days after Traumatic brain injury, and classified into 3 grades. Predictors including BSRs, age, sex, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), and cause of injury were also analyzed, respectively. The outcome was divided into 2 groups including unconscious group and minimally conscious state (MCS) group.
Results: Seventy-two of 120 were minimally conscious and 48 of 120 were unconscious at 6 months from the onset of injury. The BSRs outmatched the predictive accuracy of the GCS for outcome (AUROC, 0.853; 95% confidence interval, 0.753-0.953; and AUROC, 0.655; 95% confidence interval, 0.512-0.799, respectively). BSRs grade (P < 0.001) and GCS (P < 0.05) were significantly associated with the outcome. The accuracy of the whole regression model for predicting unconscious and MCS was 91.7% and 79.2%, respectively.
Conclusion: The BSRs grade shows a significantly higher accuracy for prediction of MCS compared with the GCS. BSRs grade is a simple, yet reliable and stratification tool for early decision making.