Brain tissue oxygen tension is more indicative of oxygen diffusion than oxygen delivery and metabolism in patients with traumatic brain injury.

Objectives: Despite the growing clinical use of brain tissue oxygen monitoring, the specific determinants of low brain tissue oxygen tension (P(bt)O2) following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) remain poorly defined. The objective of this study was to evaluate whether P(bt)O2 more closely reflects variables related to cerebral oxygen diffusion or reflects cerebral oxygen delivery and metabolism.

Design: Prospective observational study.

Posttraumatic vasospasm: the epidemiology, severity, and time course of an underestimated phenomenon: a prospective study performed in 299 patients.

Object: The purpose of this prospective study was to evaluate the cumulative incidence, duration, and time course of cerebral vasospasm after traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a cohort of 299 patients.

Methods: Transcranial Doppler (TCD) ultrasonography studies of blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral and basilar arteries (VMCA and VBA, respectively) were performed at regular intervals during the first 2 weeks posttrauma in association with 133Xe cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements. According to current definitions of vasospasm, five different criteria were used to classify the patients: A (VMCA > 120 cm/second); B (VMCA > 120 cm/second and a Lindegaard ratio [LR] > 3); C (spasm index [SI] in the anterior circulation > 3.

Cerebral hemodynamic and metabolic profiles in fulminant hepatic failure: relationship to outcome.

The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the potential role of cerebral hemodynamic and metabolic factors in the outcome of patients with fulminant hepatic failure (FHF). Based on the literature, a hypothetical model was proposed in which physiologic changes progress sequentially in five phases, as defined by intracranial pressure (ICP) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements. Seventy-six cerebral physiologic profiles were obtained in 26 patients (2 to 5 studies each) within 6 days of FHF diagnosis.

Effect of xenon-induced flow activation on xenon-enhanced computed tomography cerebral blood flow calculations.

Computer simulations of stable xenon ((S)Xe) uptake curves were used to evaluate the effect of xenon-induced flow activation on CBF calculations by xenon-enhanced computed tomography. Estimates of flow activation were based on repeated transcranial Doppler measurements of blood velocity during 4.5 minutes of (S)Xe inhalation.