Current Pharmaceutical Design - Volume 7, Issue 15, 2001

Traumatic brain injury is a major health problem in all developed countries. The main aim of this review is to provide a short update on the most recent advances in our knowledge of the brain's response to mechanical injuries, focusing on metabolic, cellular, subcellular, and molecular events that take place in severe head injuries. Knowledge of these events is essential for a better understanding of new pharmacological avenu Read More

Considerable effort has led to an increased interest in emerging preclinical and clinical data regarding the pathophysiological changes in the posttraumatic brain. It is widely believed that delayed cell damage and death contributes to behavioral impairment following traumatic brain injury. However, no drug therapy to attenuate this process is available at present, and the development of new therapeutic regimen is urgently Read More

The goal of this article is to give an overview about the established current treatment concepts of traumatic brain injury, as well as an outlook on possible future developments in pharmacological neuroprotection.Modern medical treatment modalities of traumatic brain injury (TBI), including the preclinical management of severely head-injured patients, are reviewed. Since an increased intracranial pressure represents the mo Read More

Fever above 38C that occurs in patients with acute neurosurgical diseases appears to worsen secondary brain injury and ultimate neurologic outcomes. Laboratory investigations are quite clear regarding the adverse effects of fever in terms not only of functional outcomes, but also histologic and neurochemical injury. Several preliminary clinical studies also suggest worsened neurologic outcomes in patients who are Read More

It is often suggested that one reason that neuroprotection trials in head injury have not shown benefit is the insensitivity of the outcome measures employed. The review considers strengths and weaknesses of the main approaches to assessing outcome in head injury trials. Determination of a response to neuroprotection requires a measure that is both sensitive to differences in outcome and is also influenced by brain injury. Se Read More