Patients with mild traumatic brain injury: Immediate and long-term outcome compared to intra-cranial injuries on CT scan

Background: Mild traumatic brain injury ( MTBI) defined as Glasgow Coma Scale ( GCS) 14 or 15 has shown contradictory short- and long- term outcomes. The objective of this study was to correlate intra- cranial injuries ( ICI) on CT scan to neurocognitive tests at admission and to complaints after 1 year. Methods: Two hundred and five patients with MTBI underwent a CT scan and were examined with neurocognitive tests. After 1 year complaints were assessed by phone interviews. Results: The neurocognitive tests in 51% of the patients showed significant deficits; there was no difference for patients with GCS 14 - 15, nor was there a difference between patients with ICI to patients without. After 1 year patients with ICI had significantly more complaints than patients without ICI, the most frequent complaint was headache and memory deficits. Conclusions: No correlation was found between GCS or ICI and the neurocognitive tests upon admission. After 1 year, patients with ICI have significantly more complaints than patients without ICI. No cost savings resulted by doing immediate CT scan on all.