Significance and Diagnostic Accuracy of Early S100B Serum Concentration after Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage.

BACKGROUND: Early brain injuries (EBI) are one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality after subarachnoid hemorrhage. At admission, a third of patients are unconscious (spontaneously or sedated) and EBI consequences are not evaluable. To date, it is unclear who will still be comatose (with severe EBI) and who will recover (with less severe EBI) once the aneurysm is treated and sedation withdrawn. The objective of the present study was to determine the diagnostic accuracy of S100B levels at hospital admission to identify patients with severe neurological consequences of EBI. METHODS: Patients were consecutively included in this prospective blinded observational study. A motor component of the Glasgow coma score under 6 on day 3 was used to define patients with severe neurological consequences of EBI. RESULTS: A total of 81 patients were included: 25 patients were unconscious at admission, 68 were treated by coiling. On day 3, 12 patients had severe consequences of EBI. A maximal S100B value between admission and day 1 had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 86.7% to predict severe EBI consequences. In patients with impaired consciousness at admission, the AUC was 88.2%. CONCLUSION: Early S100B seems to have a good diagnostic value to predict severe EBI. Before claiming the usefulness of S100B as a surrogate marker of EBI severity to start earlier multimodal monitoring, these results must be confirmed in an independent validation cohort.

Not everything that shakes is a seizure Role of continuous EEG in the intensive care unit.

Treatment of status epilepticus often requires highly sedative drugs with risk of side effects. Correct diagnosis is mandatory in order to prevent introduction of usefulness treatments. We report a case of suspected myoclonic status epilepticus. A thalamic lesion secondary to an osmotic demyelination syndrome was found to be the likely etiology of the myoclonus. Electrophysiological data (electroencephalography and electromyography) provided evidence for a subcortical origin of myoclonus and use of continuous EEG allowed monitoring of drug withdrawal.

Assessment of jugular blood oxygen and lactate indices for detection of cerebral ischemia and prognosis.

Levels of jugular blood oxygen saturation (SjvO2) and lactate have been proposed as indicators of cerebral ischemia and prognosis. However, sensitivity and specificity of these markers remain unknown. We retrospectively analyzed records of a series of 43 comatose patients at risk for cerebral ischemia, mainly after head injuries or subarachnoidal hemorrhage. Their SjvO2, jugulo-arterial lactate difference (VADLactate), and lactate-oxygen index (LOI) were determined every 8 hours. An increase in VADLactate and LOI was found, indicative of ischemia on CT scan, with threshold values of 0.30 mmol/L and 0.15, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity were 100% and 64%, respectively, for the VADLactate threshold, and 90% and 55%, respectively, for the LOI threshold. Regarding prediction of a poor outcome, only an increase in VADLactate had a predictive value with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 67%. No threshold value with sufficient sensitivity and specificity was found for SjvO2, as indicator of either ischemia or outcome. During progression to brain death, VADLactate and LOI reached abnormal levels earlier than cerebral perfusion pressure or SjvO2. They reacted markedly to focal ischemia due to vasospasm. Hyperlactacidemia rendered VADLactate and LOI uninterpretable by causing a brain lactate influx. Present data, if confirmed by a prospective study, would justify inclusion of intermittent VADLactate and LOI determinations in the multimodal cerebral monitoring.