The Importance of Evaluation of Hemoglobin and Hematocrit Values in 0-2 Age Group Patients with Head Trauma

Abstract

Abstract Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of moderate and severe head trauma in patients aged between 0–2 years who admitted to the emergency department and were hospitalized in the service or intensive care unit, the type of trauma, the age group in which the trauma occurred, the most common localization of the trauma on the head, the severity of the trauma and the rate of decrease in hemoglobin (HGB) and hematocrit (HCT), and to understand the relationship between the rate of decrease in HGB and HCT and the severity of the trauma in this age group who cannot be fully cooperative in anamnesis and examination. Method In this study, patients, who were admitted to the emergency department of Niğde Ömer Halisdemir Training and Research Hospital between 2019 and 2022, with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) of 13 and below and who were hospitalized in the service or intensive care unit, were evaluated. Among these hospitalized patients, 180 patients who underwent brain computed tomography (CT) before being hospitalized in the emergency department, whose clinical findings were determined according to PECARN rules, whose hemogram blood was taken and who were found to have no hemolysis were retrospectively analyzed. Discussion In the study, 97 male and 83 female patients were evaluated. The majority of the cases were falls with 124 (68.8%) cases. (Head traumas were evaluated according to the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) estimation rules and falls from a height of less than 3 feet (90cm) were considered as falls, while falls from a higher height were considered as falls from a height). It was observed that most of the trauma-related lesions occurred in the temporal region in 62 cases (34.44%). The most common lesion detected was skull bone fractures without parenchymal hemorrhage in 112 cases (62.2%). It was determined that 167 (92.8%) and 13 (7.2%) patients were hospitalized in the service and intensive care unit, respectively. Patients were classified according to their ages as between 0–1 years and between 1–2 years. There were 103 cases (57.22%) aged between 0–1 years and 77 cases (42.78%) aged between 1–2 years. Conclusion At the end of this study, it was determined that as the severity of trauma increased, the decrease in HGB and HCT values increased.