Abstract

Traumatic brain injury is one of the most common causes of mortality and moribity worldwide and may cause a various of secondary injuries including brain contusions. Those injuries may be overlooked because it's often associated with other larger and more obvious lesions and because they have a tendency to further progress and increase in size later on.  All that rises the requirement for early detection of contusions to provide necessary management in order to prevent further progression.  

Objective: The aim of this study was to manifest the most useful evidences for an early detection of hemorrhagic contusion following head injuries and also the signs of a hemorrhagic progression occurs later on.  

Patients and methods: This study was done in Al-Hussein teaching hospital in AlMuthanna governorate during a five months period from November 2022 until March 2023. The data was collected initially  from fifty  patients of all age groups  with a history of head trauma admitted to the emergency room . Their clinical condition from admission until discharge or death and the investigations results (especially imaging modalities) were carefully studied and analyzed.

Results: Of the total fifty patients admitted only fifteen person of them met the inclusion criteria.  CT scan was the basic imaging modality used to evaluate their condition and it showed abnormal changes depending on the pathological stage of contusion. The results of our study also showed that low GCS, older age, male gender and associated lesions as hemorrhage were more common to be found in patients with contusion.   

Conclusion: Hemorrhagic contusions after head injury is a common incidence that require careful investigations to search for. It usually appears in CT scan as hyperdense area with hypodense lesion within it (heterogenous) initially, and then becomes reduced in density  to eventually sometimes and after months appear as a cystic area. Progression of lesion occurs usually during first 24 hours and therefore serial CT scans may be required.