ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics, operation time and methods for patients with central brain herniation caused by bifrontal contusions. Methods A retrospective study was performed on the medical records of patients with central brain herniation caused by bifrontal contusions admitted from January 2000 to December 2006. There were 45 males and 18 females, at age range of 20-72 years (average 43 years). The majority of the patients were victims of falls and traffic accidents. There were 29 patients treated with immediate operation and 34 with emergency operation. All the operations involved simultaneous bilateral craniectomy for decompression, including 17 patients treated with bilateral decompressive craniectomy and 46 with unilateral decompressive craniectomy. Results The prognosis was favorable in 19 patients with GOS score of 5 or 4 points, severely disabled in seven with GOS score of 3 points, vegetative in four with GOS score of 4 points and the worst in seven with GOS score of 1 point. Of all, 19 patients suffered severe mental disorders especially personality change and disturbance of intelligence. Seven patients were complicated by epilepsy and three by hydrocephalus. Conclusions Based on early clinical manifestations of central brain herniation combined with imaging manifestations, bilateral balance decompression craniectomy can reduce the mortality and morbidity and improve the cure rate of patients with central herniation caused by bifrontal brain contusions.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: With development of modern medical sciences, the out comes after meningioma surgery cannot be fully assessed using morbidity,livability and mortality merely. Quality of life (QOL) is a health-related multivariable index, which provides integrated inf ormation associated with physiological,sychological and social adaptation status of the patients to doctors. Assessment of the QOL in meningioma patients may be one of a relatively good method for guiding surgery and reducing reoccurrence of tuOBJECTIVE: To evaluate the QOL in meningioma patients and then to provide relevant data for assessing the outcomes of meningioma surgery comprehensively.DESIGN: It was a single-sample investigation. SETTING: Neurosurgery Department, Second People's Hospital of Wuxi City of Nanjing Medical University.PARTICIPANTS: Totally 147 patients underwent meningioma surgery in the Neurosurgery Department of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Wuxi City affiliated to Nanjing Medical University between January 1995 to January 2001 were selected, 61 males and 86 females, with a male/female ratio of 2:3 and an age ranging from 5-77 years old, in average of 43 years old, and the median was 43 years old.METHODS: Based on World Health Organization Quality of Life 100item questionnaire (WHOQOL-100) and Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS), we designed a questionnaire on QOL in patients with meningioma.Outcomes of the transverse investigation on 147 meningioma patients were compared with healthy controls. Surgery-related QOL curve was used for identifying the threshold satisfactory point of QOL. In addition, with selfcontrol, influence of surgery on QOL was assessed.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Relationship between QOL and clinical histories, radiological analysis, operation grading, histological properties and reoccurrence were investigated.RESULTS: All of the 147 patients entered the statistical analysis. ①In patient with meningioma, Cronbach's coefficient was 0.9521 and the correlated coefficient was 0.8685, which suggested that QOL questionnaire for patients with meningioma had a good reliability and validity. ②QOL ≥70 represented that the patient was satisfied with the QOL. ③In patients underwent surgical treatment, their physiological functions, self-help and self-care except for psychological functions were significantly improved (P ＜ 0.001 ).CONCLUSION: Surgical treatment enables patients to get a satisfied QOL. QOL questionnaire for patients with meningioma is helpful to provide relevant data for meningioma operation.