Potential of Hematologic Parameters in Predicting Mortality of Patients with Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) occurs frequently, and acute TBI requiring surgical treatment is closely related to patient survival. Models for predicting the prognosis of patients with TBI do not consider various factors of patient status; therefore, it is difficult to predict the prognosis more accurately. In this study, we created a model that can predict the survival of patients with TBI by adding hematologic parameters along with existing non-hematologic parameters. The best-fitting model was created using the Akaike information criterion (AIC), and hematologic factors including preoperative hematocrit, preoperative C-reactive protein (CRP), postoperative white blood cell (WBC) count, and postoperative hemoglobin were selected to predict the prognosis. Among several prediction models, the model that included age, Glasgow Coma Scale, Injury Severity Score, preoperative hematocrit, preoperative CRP, postoperative WBC count, postoperative hemoglobin, and postoperative CRP showed the highest area under the curve and the lowest corrected AIC for a finite sample size. Our study showed a new prediction model for mortality in patients with TBI using non-hematologic and hematologic parameters. This prediction model could be useful for the management of patients with TBI.