Beyond mild, moderate, and severe Traumatic Brain Injury: modelling severity from clinical, neuroimaging, and blood-based indicators.

Authors:

Lindsay D. Nelson, Brooke E. Magnus, John K. Yue, Steve Balsis, Christopher J. Patrick, Nancy Temkin, Esther L. Yuh, Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, Ehri Ryu, Andrew I. R. Maas, David K. Menon, Lindsay Wilson, and Geoffrey T. Manley, the TRACK-TBI Investigators, on behalf of the CENTER-TBI Participants and Investigators.

Lay summary – Traumatic brain injuries are usually described as mild, moderate or severe using a simple consciousness score, but this can miss important differences between patients. This study developed a more detailed way to measure TBI severity using clinical information, CT scan findings and blood test markers. The new score was tested in two large patient groups and compared with existing severity categories and recovery six months after injury.