Routine intracranial pressure monitoring in a countryside university hospital

ABSTRACT

Intracranial pressure monitoring has become critical for the adequate management of patients with severe head injury in recent years. Several other recommendations for intracranial pressure monitoring have also been described, specially for patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage with ventricular enlargement, and spontaneous intracerebral hematomas. The immediate postoperative period of elective surgeries that require brain retraction is another instance where intracranial pressure monitoring could provide useful informations to optimize outcome. Expensive methods make it almost prohibitive to smaller centers in our Country. We describe our protocol of routine intracranial pressure monitoring using an intraventricular catheter connected to an external strain gauge transducer adapted to an ordinary invasive pressure monitor, in a countryside university hospital, and analyze the data of intracranial pressure and cerebral perfusion pressure obtained with regards to outcome and also investigate the more common complications of the method. We conclude that intracranial pressure monitoring could be safely applied at a low cost to improve the management of those patients.