The incidence of pathologic findings of the cranial computed tomography in patients with minor head trauma and its correlation with age and clinical features

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Our objective was to determine the incidence of diagnosing lesions by cranial computed tomography (CT) and to evaluate prospectively whether this incidence correlated with clinical features and age in patients with minor head trauma (MHT). METHODS: This prospective study included 78 patients with MHT. All of the cases underwent CT following their clinical assessment. RESULTS: In the 34.61% of cases, there was a pathologic finding in the CT however the incidence of intracranial injury was 15.38%. There were no significant differences between children (n:22) and adults (n:56), the patients with and without a history of the loss of consciousness/amnesia and the patients with and without clinical symptoms (p>0.05). CONCLUSION: Our results support the studies which have reported that there is no non-focal clinical factor as a predictor for pathologic CT findings.