THE RELATIONSHIP OF VOMIITING WITH INTRACRANIAL TRAUMA IN MILD CASES OF HEAD INJURY

Objective: "To determine the relationship between intracranial pathology and post-traumatic vomiting in patients with mild brain injury".

Study design: A descriptive cross-sectional study.

Location and duration: In the Emergency and Neurosurgery Outpatient Department of Services Hospital Lahore for one year duration from March 2017 to March 2018.

Methodology: The data were analyzed in relation to 206 consecutive patients who were admitted to the emergency and neurosurgery outpatient department of Services Hospital Lahore. The data were collected through non-probability suitability sampling. The features examined were brain findings with computed tomography and severity and presence vomiting post-traumatically.

Results: A total of 206 patients with mild head injury were included in our study. A total of 127 (61.7%) patients presented with vomiting after head trauma and 79 (38.3%) patients with no vomiting. 49 (23.8%) vomited once, and 78 (37.9%) showed vomiting multiple times. Vomiting was significantly more common in patients who have abnormal computed tomography. Abnormal computed tomography showed a rate of 66.7% and 51.5% of patients with normal computed tomography. Conversely, in patients with post-traumatic vomiting, 72.4% had abnormal computed tomography scans as compared to 58.2% had abnormal CT scans, and no vomiting was observed. The relationship between intracranial lesion and vomiting in CT was statistically significant; p = 0.035; OR = 1.886, 95% CI = 1.042-3.411.

Conclusion: Computed tomography has a significantly higher incidence of intracranial lesions in patients with post-traumatic vomiting. These results support the inclusion of the study in defective guidelines for the application of minor injuries to the head.

Key words: mild head injuries, vomiting, computerized tomography of the brain.