Neurocritical Care Education in the United States.

Neurocritical care is a relatively young subspecialty that is rapidly coming into its own. As the neurocritical care community has expanded, the process of training and credentialing physicians in this growing field has undergone a rapid evolution. This article will review the history and current state of neurocritical care training and education, physician certification, and program accreditation in the United States within the larger context of critical care training across subspecialties.

Phantom-based standardization of CT angiography images for spot sign detection.

Purpose: The CT angiography (CTA) spot sign is a strong predictor of hematoma expansion in intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). However, CTA parameters vary widely across centers and may negatively impact spot sign accuracy in predicting ICH expansion. We developed a CT iodine calibration phantom that was scanned at different institutions in a large multicenter ICH clinical trial to determine the effect of image standardization on spot sign detection and performance.

Trends in Transcranial Doppler Monitoring in Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: A 10-Year Analysis of the Nationwide Inpatient Sample.

Background: Transcranial Doppler (TCD) is endorsed by national guidelines for use in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) for surveillance of cerebral vasospasm (CV). However, nationwide data on utilization of TCD for CV detection and monitoring in aSAH are lacking.

Methods: Analysis of nationwide trends in TCD prevalence was performed using Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) data from 2002 to 2011.