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Original Paper

Pediatr Neurosurg 2019;54:237–244 Received: March 18, 2019


Accepted: May 19, 2019
DOI: 10.1159/000501043 Published online: July 9, 2019

Traumatic Pediatric Extradural


Hematoma: An Institutional Study
of 228 Patients in Tertiary Care Center
Mohd Faheem a Manish Jaiswal b Bal Krishna Ojha b Anil Chandra b
       

Sunil Kumar Singh b Chhitij Srivastava b
   

a Department of Neurosurgery, Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences, Etawah, India;


b Department
of Neurosurgery, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, India

Keywords 18 years (n = 122, 53.5%). Majority of them were male (n =


Extradural hematoma · Head Injury · Traumatic brain injury · 182, 79.8%). The commonest mode of injury was fall from
Pediatric head injury height (n = 116, 50.9%) followed by road traffic accident (n =
92, 40.4%). Most common site of hematoma was frontal re-
gion (n = 66, 28.9%) followed by parietal region (n = 54,
Abstract 23.7%). The volume of hematoma was between 30 and
Background: Extradural hematoma (EDH) is one of the most 50 mL in majority of the patients (n = 186, 81.6%), and most
common causes of mortality and morbidity after traumatic of the patients had a motor responses of M5 (n = 88, 38.6%)
brain injury in pediatric patients. Early surgical intervention and M6 (n = 108, 47.4%). The association between hemato-
in these patients produces excellent results. Objective: We ma site and volume was not significant (χ2 = 5.910, p = 0.749),
reviewed surgical experience at our center, examining and whereas statistically significant association was noted be-
presenting symptomatology and outcome analysis. Materi- tween volume of hematoma and motor response (χ2 =
als and Methods: A retrospective study of 228 pediatric pa- 93.468, p ≤ 0.001), volume and age (χ2 = 7.380, p ≤ 0.05), and
tients of EDH from July 2007 to August 2017 was performed. volume to time between trauma and surgery (χ2 = 8.469, p ≤
Patients were evaluated in terms of demographic profile, 0.05). Maximum mortality was in patients of low motor (M1–
clinical features, pupillary size and reaction, computed to- M3) response and who were operated 24 h after injury. Con-
mography findings, operative measures, and several other clusion: Mortality in patients of EDH can be significantly re-
parameters. Neurological status was assessed using motor duced with gratifying results if operated early. Best motor
component (M) of Glasgow Coma Scale score. Best motor response at presentation, pupillary abnormalities, time be-
response was considered as a criterion to classify severity of tween injury to surgery, and location of hematoma have
traumatic brain injury and for the assessment of outcome. been identified as the important factors determining out-
Results: Most of the patients were in the age group of 13– come in patients of EDH. © 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel
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© 2019 S. Karger AG, Basel Dr. Manish Jaiswal


Department of Neurosurgery
King George’s Medical University
E-Mail karger@karger.com
Chowk, Lucknow 226003, Uttar Pradesh (India)
www.karger.com/pne
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E-Mail manishjaiswal @ kgmcindia.edu


Introduction Table 1. Age specific distribution of injury

Extradural hematoma (EDH), an accumulation of Age group, years n (%)


blood between the inner table of skull and periosteal 13–18 122 (53.5
dura, is one of the most rewarding surgery if performed 7–12 60 (26.3)
timely and meticulously. In India, 40% of over 1,250 mil- <6 46 (20.2)
lion people belong to pediatric age group and around 25– Total 228 (100.0)
27% of all head injury victims are children [1, 2]. The
incidence of EDH in pediatric age group ranges between
2 and 3% [3]. There is not much literature available re-
Table 2. Mode of injury and motor response
garding pediatric EDH from the Indian subcontinent.
Being a tertiary care center, we used to cater an extreme- Mode of n (%) Motor response (M)
ly large number of patients with traumatic brain injury. injury
Therefore, this retrospective study, which is one of the M1–M2 M3–M4 M5–M6
largest comprising 228 patients, was planned. We re- FFH 116 (50.9) 7 11 98
viewed our 10-year surgical experience including clinico- RTA 92 (40.4) 6 3 83
radiological profile and analyzed the outcome on the ba- Assault 20 (8.8) 1 4 15
sis of best motor response (M) at the time of presentation Total 228 (100) 14 18 196
to the hospital.
FFH, fall from height; RTA, road traffic accident.

Materials and Methods

This retrospective study was conducted from July 2007 to Results


­ ugust 2017 at department of Neurosurgery, King George’s Med-
A
ical University and Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences,
Uttar Pradesh, India. A total of 503 pediatric patients (up to 18 Age and Sex
years of age) were enrolled for study, but only 228 patients were The age group that was found to be the most vulner-
operated and included in the study. able to injury was of 13–18 year (n = 122, 53.5%) followed
by 7–12 year (n = 60, 26.3%) and <7 year (20.2%; Table
Inclusion Criteria 1). There were 182 males (79.8%) and 46 females (20.2%),
• EDH volume >30 mL. with a male-to-female ratio of 3.96:1.
• EDH thickness >15 mm.
• Midline shift >5 mm in any motor response.
• Symptomatic posterior fossa EDH. Mode of Injury
The commonest mode of injury was fall from a height
Exclusion Criteria (n = 116, 50.9%), followed by road traffic accident (RTA;
• Patients managed conservatively n = 92, 40.4%) and lastly due to an assault (n = 20. 8.8%)
• Associated other intraparenchymal lesions (contusion, subdu-
ral hematoma, intra-parenchymal hematoma, and diffuse axo-
Each mode of injury had maximum number of patients
nal injury). in M5 and M6 responses whereas least in M1 and M2 re-
We have excluded the patients with other coexistent intrapa- sponses. The relationship between mode of injury and
renchymal lesion so as to have the outcome specifically related to motor response was not found to be significant (χ2 =
isolated EDH. The clinical record of these 228 patients were ana- 21.886, p = 0.111; Table 2).
lyzed for demographic profile, mode of injury, location of hema-
toma, pupil size and reaction, best motor response (M) at the time
of admission and discharge, and mortality. Best motor response Location of EDH
(M) was considered as a criteria to classify the severity and out- Frontal (n = 66, 28.9%) and parietal (n = 54, 23.7%)
come of pediatric EDH. were the commonest location, whereas it was least com-
mon in bifrontal region, frontoparietal region, and poste-
Statistical Analysis rior fossa accounting for 3.5% in each location. Moreover,
An analysis of data was performed using SPSS version 16. Cat-
egorical data were analyzed by Chi-square test (χ2), whereas con- right-sided preponderance was noted at all locations ex-
tinuous variables were evaluated by Student t test. A p value of cept for the temporal region, whereas hematoma was
<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. equally distributed in posterior fossa (Fig. 1).
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238 Pediatr Neurosurg 2019;54:237–244 Faheem/Jaiswal/Ojha/Chandra/Singh/


DOI: 10.1159/000501043 Srivastava
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Color version available online
70
■ Right ■ Left
60

26
50

23
40

19
30

16
20 40
31

10 21 6
14
3 4
8
5 4
0
Frontal Parietal Temporo parietal Temporal Fronto temporal Frontoparietal Posterior fossa

Fig. 1. Distribution of hematoma at various locations.

Source of Bleeding Table 3. Volume of hematoma in relation with location, motor re-
The source of bleeding was arterial in 196 patients, sponse, age, and time between trauma to surgery
whereas it was due to the partial tear of dural venous
Location of hematoma Volume of hematoma, mL
­sinuses in 8 patients. The source of bleeding could not be
identified in 24 patients as bleeding had already stopped 30–50 >50 mL
(n = 186) (n = 42)
due to compression by the hematoma.
Frontal 54 12
Volume of Hematoma Parietal 38 16
Temporo-parietal 36 4
Majority of the patients (n = 186, 81.6%) had a hema- Temporal 26 4
toma size of 30–50 mL, whereas it was >50 mL in only 42 Fronto-temporal 12 2
patients (18.4%). The relationship of the volume with lo- Bifrontal 7 1
Fronto-parietal 6 2
cation of hematoma was not significant (χ2 = 5.910, p = Posterior fossa 7 1
0.749; Table 3). Motor response (M)
M1–M2 2 12
M3–M4 6 12
Time between Trauma to Surgery M5–M6 178 18
Within 6–24 h after injury, 100 patients (43.8%) were Age, years
operated. About 90 patients were operated within 6 h ≤6 43 3
7–12 51 9
(39.5%) and only 38 patients had undergone surgery after 13–18 92 30
24 h (16.7%). Statistically significant association was pres- Time from injury to time of surgery, h
ent between volume and time between trauma and sur- <6 77 13
6–24 93 7
gery (χ2 = 8.469, p ≤ 0.05; Table 3). >24 16 22

Best Motor Score at Presentation


As depicted in Figure 2, majority of the patients pre-
sented to us in motor responses of M6 (n = 108, 47.4%) and Pupillary Abnormalities
M5 (n = 88, 38.6%), whereas only 2 patients (0.9%) were The size of pupil in majority of the patients at various
observed in M1 response and 12 patients in M2 response locations of hematoma was normal and showed normal
(5.2%). The association was significant between volume of pupillary reaction to light (n = 196, 86.0%). In 18 patients
hematoma and the motor response (χ2 = 93.468, p ≤ 0.001). (8%), pupillary asymmetry was noted, and 6 patients (2.6%)
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Traumatic Pediatric EDH Pediatr Neurosurg 2019;54:237–244 239


DOI: 10.1159/000501043
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120

108

100

88

80

Cases, n
60

40

20
10 12
8
2
0
Fig. 2. Patients with various motor re- M6 M5 M4 M3 M2 M1
sponses.

Table 4. Pupillary reaction at various location of hematoma

Pupillary reaction Site of hematoma Total

frontal parietal temporoparietal temporal frontotemporal bifrontal frontoparietal posteriorfossa

NSNR 57 46 34 26 12 8 7 6 196
Anisocoria 2 5 6 3 1 0 1 0 18
CNBT 7 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 8
Dilated and fixed 0 2 0 1 1 0 0 2 6
Total 66 54 40 30 14 8 8 8 228

NSNR, normal size and normal reaction; CNBT, could not be tested.

had dilated and fixed pupil. The relationship between pu- patient of bifrontal EDH was reoperated as bleeding per-
pillary abnormality and the site of hematoma was found to sisted from the tear in superior sagittal sinus. One pa-
be statistically significant (χ2 = 139.8, p = 0.003; Table 4). tient developed superficial wound infection which was
managed successfully with antibiotics and antiseptic
Hospital Stay dressing, whereas another patient required removal of
Except for the 16 mortality, majority of the patients the bone flap for which cranioplasty was done 6 months
(n = 181, 79.4%) were discharged in ≤7 days irrespective later.
of hematoma size and location, whereas only 31 patients
(13.6%) were discharged after 7 days (χ2 = 139.8, p ≤ Mortality
0.0001). Similarly, majority of the patients in every seg- • Based on Age
ment of motor response had a hospital stay of ≤7 days Out of 16 mortality, maximum was seen in the age
(n = 197, 86.4%) and it was found to be statistically sig- group of 13–18 years (n = 10, 8.3%) and least in the age
nificant (χ2 = 18.484, p ≤ 0.001; Table 5). group of ≤6 years (n = 2, 4.2%; Fig. 3).
• Based on Pupillary Size and Reaction
Complications All patients who presented to us with fixed and dilated
Three patients were reexplored for the reaccumula- pupil had expired (n = 6, 100%), whereas least mortality
tion of hematoma. Two of them with hematoma in tem- was observed in patients who had normal pupillary size
poroparietal region had an arterial rebleed, whereas 1 and reaction (n = 2, 1.0%; Fig. 4).
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Table 5. Hospital stay in relation to hematoma volume and motor Discussion
score
Up till now, only several small series of pediatric EDH
Hematoma site and volume, mL Hospital stay, days
exist in the literature [4–8]. We have done one of the larg-
≤7 (n = 197) >7 (n = 31) est series published till date. Although, EDH in pediatric
Frontal
age group constitutes only a small spectrum of traumatic
30–50 46 8 brain injury, yet it is an important cause of avoidable death
>50 7 5 in childhood. In our study, overall male preponderance
Parietal was reported which is consistent with other reported series
30–50 34 4
30–50 12 4 in the literature [8, 9]. Male preponderance may be attrib-
Parieto-temporal uted to early riding of unsupervised two-wheeler, more
30–50 32 4 physical, and outdoor sport activities as compared to girls.
30–50 2 2 Fall from a height was the commonest mode of injury
Temporal
30–50 26 0 in our study (50.9%), which is in line with the study done
30–50 4 0 by Zhong et al. [10] and Gerlach et al. [11]. It was mainly
Fronto-temporal attributed to unguarded rooftops while playing. RTA out-
30–50 12 0
30–50 2 0
weighs fall in a study by Umerani et al. [9], whereas we ob-
Bifrontal served RTA in only 40.4% of our patients. Unsupervised
30–50 7 0 driving at a younger age and playing in the vicinity of road
30–50 0 1 contributed to RTA. Duthie et al. [12] and Umerani et al.
Fronto-parietal
30–50 7 0 [9] reported assault as a cause of EDH in 9.0 and 6.9%, re-
30–50 0 1 spectively, which is comparable to our study (8.8%).
Posterior fossa As per our study, frontal region (28.9%) was the com-
30–50 5 1 monest location of hematoma, followed by parietal re-
30–50 1 1
gion (23.7%). Here, we differ from Gerlach et al. [11], Ben
Motor (M) score Hospital stay, days Abraham et al. [13], and Umerani et al. [9] who observed
≤7 >7 parietal region to be the commonest location of hema-
toma. There was overall right-sided preponderance in
M1–M2 8 6 our study, which is consistent with other reported series
M3–M4 11 7 in the literature [9]. As compared to 8.5% in the literature,
M5–M6 178 7
we reported only 3.5% of the posterior fossa EDH [11,
14]. The reason for this is attributed to the firm attach-
ment of dura to the posterior vault as compared to the
anterior half. EDH at multiple locations is rarely reported
• Based on the Location in the literature; however, we had 3.5% each in frontopa-
Maximum mortality was observed in patients who had rietal and bifrontal region [15].
a hematoma in posterior fossa (25.0%), followed by fron- We had operated maximum number of patients with-
totemporal region (14.3%) and least in patients having in 6–24 h (43.8%). Here we differ from the study done by
hematoma in parietotemporal region (5.0%). Gerlach et al. [11] who performed around 50% of their
• Based on Time between Trauma to Surgery surgery within 6 hours of injury. The delay in surgery may
Mortality was found to be maximum when operation be due to lack of transportation facilities during night and
was done after 24 h of injury (n = 8, 21%), whereas least availability of neurosurgical care only in large cities. Ma-
mortality was observed if operated within 6 h (n = 2, 2.2%; jority of the patients had a hospital stay of ≤7 days which
Fig. 5). was comparable to the other series [9, 12].
• Based on Best Motor Response Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) plays an important role in
None of the patient expired, who had a preoperative categorizing injury severity, but it has also got numerous
motor response of M6, whereas 2 mortalities were ob- limitations such as:
served in M5 response. Preoperative motor response of 1 It does not take into account the pupillary size and
M2 had 50% mortality, and 100% mortality was noted in reaction, pulse rate, respiration, and blood pressure
patients who had a motor response of M1 (Fig. 6). [16].
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Traumatic Pediatric EDH Pediatr Neurosurg 2019;54:237–244 241


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<6 years, 2, 12%

7–12 years, 4, 25%


13–18 years, 10, 63%

Fig. 3. Mortality in different age groups.

Color version available online


■ Survived ■ Expiry

Dilated and fixed 6

CNBT 8

Anisocoria 10 8

NSNR 194 2

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 %

Fig. 4. Figure depicting pupillary abnormality and mortality. CNBT, could not be tested; NSNR, normal size and normal reaction.

2 Inaccurate recording in patients with bilateral ecchy- ies from 0 to 12% in various literatures [9, 19, 20]. Ac-
mosis of the eyelids. cording to our study, M1 and M2 responses had worst
3 Verbal scoring can be significantly affected by facial outcome, and excellent outcome was seen in M5 and M6
injuries. responses. We had an overall mortality of 7.0%, which is
Gale et al. [17] observed that 50% of the patients could lower than Umerani et al. [9] and Molloy et al. [7], but
not be assigned accurate GCS score because of these con- higher than Duthie et al. [12] who reported no death dur-
founding variables. Among 3 components of GCS score, ing their study. We had observed maximum mortality in
motor response (M) is considered as the most reproduc- the age group of 13–18 years (4.3%) and lowest in ≤6 years,
ible and carries the best prognostic information [18]. So, which was lower than Ben Abraham et al. [13] who re-
we have designed our study on the basis of motor com- ported 7.4% death in the age group of 4–10 years and
ponent (M) of GCS score to classify the severity of brain 16.7% in the age group of <4 years. Mortality was high in
injury and for the assessment of outcome. patients who were operated 24 h after the injury and least
Several factors were responsible for the outcome of pe- in patients if operated within 6 h after injury. We found
diatric EDH, including initial motor response at presen- maximum mortality in patients who had posterior fossa
tation, pupillary size and reaction, time between trauma and frontotemporal hematoma along with fixed and di-
to surgery, and location of hematoma. Mortality rate var- lated pupil at presentation. Here, our study is consistent
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8 ■ Expiry ■ Survived
>24
30

6
Time, h

6–24
94

2
<6
88

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Fig. 5. Figure showing relationship of time of surgery and mortality.

Color version available online


120

■ Patients, n ■ Expiry 108

100

88

80

60

40

20
12
10 8
6
4
2 2 2 2
0
0
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6

Fig. 6. Mortality in various motor responses.


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Traumatic Pediatric EDH Pediatr Neurosurg 2019;54:237–244 243


DOI: 10.1159/000501043
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with Umerani et al. [9] but differ from Zhong et al. [10] Statement of Ethics
who did not find any relation of mortality with the loca-
Parents or guardians of all pediatric patients have given their
tion of hematoma. written informed consent.

Conclusion Disclosure Statement

Timely surgical intervention in patients with EDH im- The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
parts excellent outcome with low mortality. Best motor
response at presentation, pupillary abnormalities, time
between injury to surgery, and location of hematoma Funding Sources
have been identified as the important factors determining
outcome in patients of EDH. Funding source is nil.

Author Contributions
Acknowledgments
Dr. Manish Jaiswal (corresponding author) conceived and de-
This work was supported by the Department of Neurosurgery, signed the research. Dr. Mohd Faheem, Prof. Bal Krishna Ojha,
King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, UP, India and De- Prof. Anil Chandra, Prof. Sunil Kumar Singh, and Prof. Chhitij
partment of Neurosurgery, Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Srivastava contributed to the design and implementation of the
Sciences, Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, India. research, analysis of the results, and writing of the manuscript.

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