Changes of arginine vasopressin in elderly patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury / 中华创伤杂志(英文版)

ABSTRACT

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the changes and clinical significance of arginine vasopressin (AVP) in elderly patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>With radioimmunoassay, the plasma levels of AVP were measured in 32 elderly patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury, 30 traumatic patients without cerebral injury and 30 healthy elderly volunteers, respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The plasma level of AVP in patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury in the early stage (48.30 ng/L +/- 8.28 ng/L) was much higher than that of the traumatic patients without cerebral injury (25.56 ng/L +/- 4.64 ng/L, P<0.01), which was much higher than that of the healthy volunteers (5.06 ng/L +/- 4.12 ng/L, P<0.01). The level of AVP in the patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury was negatively related with GCS scores.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>AVP may play an important role in the pathophysiological process in patients with acute traumatic cerebral injury in the early stage. The severer the cerebral injury is, the higher the level of AVP is, which indicates that the level of AVP may be one of the severity indices of traumatic cerebral injury in elderly patients.</p>