The University of Arizona Medical Center, Southern Arizona’s only top-level trauma center, sees and treats about 1,000 patients per year with brain injuries.
About 550 patients are admitted annually with either a skull fracture or bleeding inside the skull and into the brain, said Dr. Peter Rhee, the UA Medical Center’s chief of trauma.
Technically, traumatic brain injury is both a clinical diagnosis and one identified by a CT scan of the brain. Sometimes people have normal CT scans but have abnormal brain function, indicating that they took a large force to the brain that is not shown on tests.
Rhee says the most common source of TBI in the local trauma center is motor-vehicle collisions with cars or motorcycles, or being hit by a car. Two-thirds of local TBI patients are male. The average age is 48.
“Falls are very common in our city, as we have an aging population,” he said. “Bicycle and ATV accidents are also very common.”
If there’s increased pressure in the brain, doctors use drugs to help reduce swelling with fluids, using high amounts of sodium called hypertonic saline. The technique is used here more than in most trauma centers in the country, Rhee said. The trauma center also uses a medication called Mannitol to pull fluid out of the brain.
“We will also put the patient on a ventilator and sedate them and put them in a medical coma in a variety of ways,” he said. “Drugs help prevent seizures, and there are many other things that we can do such as mild hypothermia.”
Recovery from TBI varies.
“Unfortunately, there are many that do not fully recover, and prognosis is difficult,” Rhee said. “We do a lot of research here to help find other ways to better manage and treat TBI.”
