Early management of head injury: summary of updated NICE guidance
BMJ 2014; 348 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g104 (Published 22 January 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g104All rapid responses
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We understand the concerns with not including other anticoagulants and antiplatelet drugs. The scope of the guideline did include other anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy where no other indication for CT existed. No evidence meeting the inclusion criteria was identified in patients with head injury using these agents and no other indication for CT scanning listed in the guidance (this included the Nishijima study in which not all patients were scanned). It is too early in the life of the new anti-coagulants to observe their impact in head injury. The GDG decided that evidence from non-head injury or trauma registry populations was of seriously limited applicability. The GDG also decided that with the lack of evidence it was better to make a research recommendation (Research Recommendation 3 in Appendix N of the guideline, http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/14355/66329/66329.pdf) and leave it to clinicians to use their judgement as to whether to scan patients of concern in these other groups.
1. Nishijima D, Offerman S, Ballard D, Vinson D, Chetipally U, Rauchwerger A, et al. Immediate and delayed traumatic intracranial haemorrhage in patients with head trauma and pre-injury warfarin or clopidogrel. Ann Emerg Med. 2012;59(6):460-8
Competing interests: No competing interests
As an anaesthetic trainee, I would like to raise the issue regarding clearing the immobilised (cervical) spine in an intubated or unconscious patient as there is no specific consensus in this area that exists.
I understand this article is primarily interested in the early management of a head/cervical spine injury but prolonged immobilisation and use of a cervical collar are associated with many problems including death secondary to necrotic pressure sores in the occipital, sacral and heel areas. The risks of prolonged immobilsation could potentially outweigh a serious missed cervical spine injury. [1]
As no single investigation will completely exclude a cervical spine injury. Clinicians must decide what investigation, or combination of investigations, provides them with enough evidence to either diagnose a cervical spine injury or exclude it. [2] As no consensus exists, and local guidelines that are being produced with inevitable variation I think a good place for a national guideline in this specific area would be in these particular NICE head injury guidelines.
I look forward to discussion on what I predict is a topic of much interest to those involved in the management of immobilsed patients in a critical care setting.
References:
1. Morris C, McCoy W, Lavery G.
Spinal immobilisation for unconcious patients with multiple injuries.
BMJ. (2004) 329(7464): 495–499.
2. Harrison P, Cairns C.
Clearing the cervical spine in the unconsious patient
CEACCP (2008) 8 (4): 117-120.
Competing interests: No competing interests
We welcome the changes within the 2014 NICE head injury guidelines [1] to downgrade the importance of vomiting in the paediatric population as an indicator for CT head imaging, but we feel they do not go far enough.
Consistently the evidence linking vomiting and clinically important traumatic head injury (ciTBI) in children has been very poor. This is reflected in the data and derived decision rules from the CATCH [2] and PECARN [3] studies which the latest NICE guideline lists as references. The study upon which the 2007 NICE guidelines was based (CHALICE 2006) [4] failed to look at isolated vomiting, and hence may have incorrectly allocated vomiting a much higher prediction value for clinically important traumatic brain injury than it deserved. Two recent studies which should be taken into consideration are those of Matthews et al 2013 [5] and Pearce et al 2012 [6] which have focused our attention on the harm of unnecessary head CT imaging of children.
In head injury, isolated vomiting is very commonly the only feature. In a large recent study in our own department 23.9% of CT scans for paediatric head injury were performed for vomiting alone. The new NICE guidelines now recommend a 4 hour observation strategy for children with 3 or more “discreet” vomits. This will result in increasing numbers of admissions as the maximum allowed stay in the Emergency Department is 4 hours, with no evidence it will improve outcomes. Furthermore, the interpretation of the term “discreet” is highly open to inter-individual variability.
If a further vomit occurs during this observation window, the guidelines continue to recommend a CT scan be performed, which we believe still places the child at risk of unnecessary ionising radiation for an extremely low yield.
We would like to see isolated vomiting removed completely from the decision making algorithm as an automatic indication for CT imaging.
Dr Jamie Fryer, Emergency Medicine Senior Clinical Fellow
Dr Ed Abrahamson, Consultant Paediatrician
Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust, London, SW10 9NH
Correspondence to Jamie.Fryer@doctors.org.uk
References
1. Hodgkinson S, Pollit V, Sharpin C, Lecky F.
Early management of head injury: summary of updated NICE guidance.
BMJ 2014;348:g104
2. Osmond MH, Klassen TP, Wells GA, Correll R, Jarvis A, Joubert G, Bailey B, Chauvin-Kimoff L, Pusic M, McConnell D, Nijssen-Jordan C, Silver N, Taylor B, Stiell IG; Pediatric Emergency Research Canada (PERC) Head Injury Study Group.
CATCH: a clinical decision rule for the use of computed tomography in children with minor head injury.
CMAJ. 2010 9;182(4):341-8.
3. Kuppermann N, Holmes JF, Dayan PS, et al ; Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN).
Identification of children at very low risk of clinically-important brain injuries after head trauma: a prospective cohort study.
Lancet. 2009 Oct 3;374(9696):1160-70
4. Dunning J, Patrick Daly J, Lomas J-P, Lecky F, Batchelor J, Mackway-Jones K
Derivation of the children’s head injury algorithm for the prediction of important clinical events decision rule for head injury in children.
Archives of Disease in Childhood; 2006 91: 885-891
5. Mathews JD ,Forsythe AV ,Brady Z ,Butler MW ,Goergen SK ,Byrnes GB ,et al.
Cancer risk in 680 000 people exposed to computed tomography scans in childhood or adolescence: data linkage study of 11 million Australians.
BMJ 2013;346:f2360
6. Pearce MS, Salotti JA, Little MP, et al
Radiation exposure from CT scans in childhood and subsequent risk of leukaemia and brain tumours: a retrospective cohort study.
Lancet 2012; 380: 499-505
7. National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Head Injury. Triage, assessment, investigation and early management of head injury in children, young people and adults. http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG176/Guidnace/pdf/English. Accessed February 2014
Competing interests: No competing interests
Immediate CT scan in the coagulopathic elderly with a minor brain injury is a must
Dear Madam,
The NICE head injury guidelines 2014 now consider the use of warfarin alone, as an indication for CT-head scan (CT) within 8 hours, after a minor brain injury (GCS >12). The guidelines state that warfarin and anti-platelet agents equally affect the coagulation system. However, a distinction is made on that only the use of warfarin mandates imaging (INR >2 by some authors) and excludes the use of anti-platelet agents.1 2 NICE guidelines are based on the Canadian CT Head Rules (CCHR), which excluded patients who had a bleeding disorder or used oral anticoagulants (ie, Coumadin). The CCHR also differ from NICE on that it considers age >65 years alone, as a high risk factor and recommends immediate CT.3 Although the search for evidence in head injury studies is a complex task, NICE could have also appraised the following publications on the use of clopidogrel in the elderly with a minor brain injury:
Nishijima et al observational cohort multicenter study reported immediate traumatic intracranial haemorrhage or contusion (TICH) in 24 of 217 patients >65 years of age with evidence of trauma above the clavicle, who were on clopidogrel (11.1% 95% CI 7.2 to 16). This is a much higher incidence that the 33 of 594 patients (5.6%), who were taking warfarin. The majority did not have loss of consciousness or amnesia at anytime and 6 out of 33 patients with an initial GCS of 15, had intracranial hematomas without evidence of trauma above the clavicles.4 These are recognized presentations, which may result in missing injuries and preventable delays.
Fabbri et al recently reported that patients with GCS 14-15, who were on clopidogrel, not only had an increased incidence of TICH, but also had a two-fold risk for deterioration within 7 days, when the number of lesions was <2, at the first CT scan (6.90% versus 3.70%, RR 1.86, 95% CI 1.06 to 3.30; P = 0.032). The risk further increased when the number of lesions was ≥3 (34.8% versus 10.4% not treated; RR 3.34, 95% CI 1.74 to 6.40, P = 0.003). The lesions included traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage, subdural and epidural haematoma, intra-cerebral haemorrhage/contusion, depressed skull fracture and intra-ventricular haemorrhage.5 Multiple lesions are a common presentation in the elderly.
A coagulopathy (clotting or bleeding disorder) is an impairment of the blood’s ability to clot, which can cause prolonged or excessive bleeding. Therefore, every patient on anti-platelet agents is coagulopathic. Very small amounts of additional intracranial bleeding may result in catastrophic consequences to the patient. Clopidogrel and aspirin inhibit platelet function for at least 5 days after discontinuation of the drug. Aspirin doubles the bleeding time and clopidogrel is considered to be equally effective, if not more potent. Many of the new anti-platelet agents have similar effects on the coagulation system.6 The treatment of the bleeding complications is difficult, as there are no specific reversal agents, contrary to warfarin. Bleeding during antithrombotic therapy is associated with high morbidity and mortality.7
Patients without loss of consciousness (LOC) or post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) need to be carefully evaluated and may need imaging in the presence of another risk factor.8 A reliable history of LOC or PTA is not always available. Elderly patients on antithrombotic medication can present with brief or prolonged brain dysfunction. Any alteration of consciousness, whether momentary confusion, agitation, vacant stare, delayed verbal or motor responses, slow to answer questions or follow commands, abnormal behaviour, incoordination or unsteady gait may be early signs of TICH. Significant subgaleal swelling has also been considered, as an indication for CT.9 The prevalence of dementia (5% in the >65s and 20% in the >80s) adds further complexity to the management of TMBI in the elderly.10
It is estimated that 10% to 15% of patients with GCS >12 have clinically significant findings on CT and up to 1% may require neurosurgery. An immediate CT allows for an early diagnosis, treatment and emergency department discharge and prevents missing a potentially life threatening injury. A delay of several hours could result in subtle bleeding progression until sudden deterioration occurs. Furthermore, the window of opportunity for early intervention to stop haematoma expansion, manage secondary brain injury and to obtain specialist haematological treatment is narrow and it could be missed. Coagulopathic patients may even require anticoagulation reversal before imaging.
Correction of the coagulation disorder is not required in patients that appear to be well with a normal CT scan, who can be discharged from the emergency department with appropriate written and verbal instructions for the patient and the carer.
The purpose of the NICE head injury guidelines is to enable for early detection and treatment of life- threatening brain injury and early discharge of patients with negligible risk of brain injury. However, this cannot be achieved without an immediate CT in the coagulopathic elder with a mild brain injury. Those patients with TICH may not only require timely in-hospital management and neurologic observation but also rapid correction of the coagulopathy or emergency neurosurgery. Otherwise the outcomes will be very poor and the mortality rates very high.
Plutarco Chiquito-Lopez senior education fellow in emergency medicine, Royal Hospitals, Belfast BT12 6BA plutarco.chiquito-lopez@belfasttrust.hscni.net
Oliver Bannon consultant in emergency medicine, Royal Hospitals, Belfast BT12 6BA
1. Hodgkinson S, Pollit V, Sharpin C. Early management of head injury, summary of updated NICE guidance. BMJ 2014;348:g104
2. National Institute for Clinical Excellence. Head Injury. Triage, assessment, investigation and early management of head injury in children, young people and adults. http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG176/Guidnace/pdf/English. Accessed February 2014
3. Stiell I, Wells G, Vandemheen C, et al. The Canadian Head Rule for patients with minor head injury. Lancet 2001,357;1391-1396
4. Nishijima D, Offerman S, Ballard D, Vinson D, Chetipally U, Rauchwerger A, et al. Immediate and delayed traumatic intracranial haemorrhage in patients with head trauma and pre-injury warfarin or clopidogrel. Ann Emerg Med. 2012;59(6):460-8
5. Fabbri A, Servadei F, Marchesini G, Stein S, Vandelli A. Antiplatelet therapy and the outcome of subjects with intracranial injury: the Italian SIMEU study. Critical Care. 2013,17:R53
6. Brunton L, Chabner B, Knollman B. Goodman & Gildman’s. The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics. 12th Edition. McGraw-Hill; 2011
7. Makris M, Van Veen J, Tait C, et al. Guideline on the management of bleeding in patients on antithrombotic agents. British Journal of Haematology. 2012;160:35-46
8. Smits M, Hunik M G M, Nederkom P , Dekker HM, Vos PE, Kool DR, et al. A history of loss of consciousness or post-traumatic amnesia in minor head injury: “conditio sine qua non” or one of the risk factors?. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2007;78(12):1359-1364
9. Greenberg M S. Handbook of neurosurgery. 7th Edition. Thieme; 2010
10. Bracewell C, Gray R, Rai G. Essential facts in geriatric medicine, 2nd edition. Radcliffe Publishing; 2010
Competing interests: No competing interests
We have read with interest the summary of updated NICE guidance for early management of head injury.[1] Considering the criteria for computed tomography (CT) scan, Matt Heywood endorsed a letter expressing the concerns about the absence of other anticoagulants, rather than warfarin, as criterion for CT scan.[2]
Putting the things in perspective, the pharmacological effect of all these drugs impair the haemostasis by inhibiting factors from the coagulation cascade and, thereby increase the risk of bleeding.
New oral anticoagulants (NOACs) such as apixaban, dabigatran, edoxaban and rivaroxaban, have overcome some limitations presented by warfarin, and shown to be at least similar in terms of efficacy.
Regarding intracranial haemorrhage (ICH), we performed an electronic literature search to identify phase III randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the referred NOACs compared to warfarin, with at least 1 ICH event during the trial.
We found 10 RCTs with 96 610 patients (5 trials with 72 793 patients with atrial fibrillation, and 5 trials enrolling 23 817 patients with venous thromboembolism). Overall 54 853 patients were treated with NOACs and the mean follow-up was 2.2 years for atrial fibrillation (AF) and 0.92 years for venous thromboembolism (VTE) trials.
Random effects meta-analysis of these studies showed a significant relative risk reduction of ICH in patients with AF treated with NOACs (Risk Ratio [RR] 0.44; 95% Confidence Interval [95%CI] 0.35 to 0.55), with moderate heterogeneity between studies (I2=49%). Similarly the ICH risk reduction with NOACs was significant in trials with patients with VTE disease (RR 0.31; 95%CI 0.15 to 0.67; I2=0%). There was no difference between the estimates of AF and VTE trials (p=0.40). Figure 1 shows the forest plot with meta-analysis results.
Assuming similarity of relative risk reduction with NOACS across the referred conditions, the overall pooled RR of ICH with NOAC was 0.43 (95%CI 0.36 to 0.51; I2=15%).
It is true that these data do not reflect the risk of patients with head injury, but are somehow informative showing that NOACs consistently halve the risk of global ICH.
Despite the all, the global risk of bleeding including ICH is increased with any anticoagulant, therefore we agree with Heywood’s concerns.
References
1. Hodgkinson S, Pollit V, Sharpin C, Lecky F; on behalf of the Guideline Development Group. Early management of head injury: summary of updated NICE guidance. BMJ 2014;348:g104.
2. Heywood M. Computed tomography after head injury for patients taking any anticoagulant, not just warfarin? BMJ 2014;348:g1431.
Competing interests: DC and JC do not have any competing interests. FJP had consultant and speaker fees with Astra Zeneca, Bayer and Boehringer Ingelheim. JJF had speaker and consultant fees with GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Lundbeck, Solvay, Abbott, Bial, Merck-Serono, Grunenthal, and Merck Sharp and Dohme.
Thank you for this update.
I note that NICE has included warfarin therapy as an indication for the CT scanning of adult patients in its own right. I concerned, however, that no mention is made of other anticoagulant strategies incuding those on long-term low molevular weight heparins or the new oral agents such as apixaban which are incresingly being used for thromboprophylaxis following elective orthopaedic surgery or as an alternative to warfarin in atrial fibrillation.
My fear is that the use of the term "patients on warfarin" in the published guideline rather than "patients on anticoagulant medications" may inhibit a number of anticoagulated patients from receiving CT imaging at an appropriate time.
Competing interests: No competing interests
We wish to point out a small error in the C spine imaging algorithms published with this article last week. In the flow diagram where the indications for CT are met the box should read "Perform CT of the Cervical Spine within an hour of the indication being detected" - it currently reads ".....CT head scan......."
Competing interests: No competing interests
I would just like to query the c spine imaging algorithm. If there is a head injury not significant enough to fulfil CT head criteria but there is suspicion of c spine injury with low risk factors then plain films are undertaken. If these are inadequate the algorithm still points to CT head. Do you mean CT head and CT C spine? If C spine CT is to be included in the guidelines please could we have evidence for this and for the timings as in a DGH neck pain after minor injury is not uncommon. If CT c spine is not to be included in the guidelines then is it still appropriate to have a line from inadequate plain films to CT head as the CT head will not image the spine (films usually being inadequate at C7 T1)and they do not fit the criteria for head CT?
Obviously clinical acumen will always override guidelines but as we have seen with the head injury guidelines if it is published it will be quoted.
Competing interests: No competing interests
Re: Early management of head injury: summary of updated NICE guidance
We note the comments from Fryer et al(1) as regards vomiting in relation to CT scanning and observation practices in paediatric head injury.
The GDG considered the CHALICE,(2) CATCH,(3) and PECARN(4) clinical decision rules as potential strategies to guide imaging decisions in paediatric head injury. All three include vomiting as a clinical finding which increases the risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI), and the GDG therefore felt strongly that vomiting should remain in the current NICE guidance (CG176). An in depth review of existing evidence indicated that isolated vomiting in paediatric head injury represents a lower risk of TBI than some other clinical features. The current NICE guidance reflects this, suggesting active observation for children with three or more discreet episodes of isolated vomiting, though patients with persisting vomiting and/or other clinical features should undergo CT scanning.
Subsequent to the publication of the current NICE guidance (CG176) the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) published further evidence on the association of traumatic brain injuries with vomiting in children with blunt head trauma. This study represents a sub-analysis of 42,114 patients.(5) Of 298 patients who had a CT scan and any vomiting as an isolated finding, 5 (1.7%) had radiologic features of TBI. This increased when vomiting occurred in association with other clinical findings, with CT findings of TBI in 211 of 3284 (6.4%). This demonstrates that though the risk is low, TBI does occur with isolated vomiting. These children may therefore undergo a period of observation prior to imaging decisions, and a CT scan should be performed in the presence of persisting symptoms and/or other clinical features.
The GDG considered the role and duration of observation, and reached consensus that observation should be performed for a minimum of four hours from the time of injury. This is unlikely to result in a substantial increase in admission rates as this relates to the time of injury, not time of Emergency Department presentation. Rather only those children who require ongoing observation and/or a CT scan will require admission. However we urge common sense be employed when considering the necessary period of observation for an individual patient, recognising that some will require observation beyond this time point due to time elapsed between injury and Emergency Department attendance.
References
1. Fryer J, Abrahamson E. Remove isolated vomiting as an automatic indication for computed tomography in children with head injury. BMJ. 2014 Mar 10;348(mar10 15):g2032–g2032.
2. Dunning J, Daly JP, Lomas J-P, Lecky F, Batchelor J, Mackway-Jones K, et al. Derivation of the children’s head injury algorithm for the prediction of important clinical events decision rule for head injury in children. Arch Dis Child. 2006 Nov;91(11):885–91.
3. Osmond MH, Klassen TP, Wells GA, Correll R, Jarvis A, Joubert G, et al. CATCH: a clinical decision rule for the use of computed tomography in children with minor head injury. CMAJ Can Med Assoc J. 2010 Mar 9;182(4):341–8.
4. Kuppermann N, Holmes JF, Dayan PS, Hoyle JD Jr, Atabaki SM, Holubkov R, et al. Identification of children at very low risk of clinically-important brain injuries after head trauma: a prospective cohort study. Lancet. 2009 Oct 3;374(9696):1160–70.
5. Dayan PS, Holmes JF, Atabaki S, Hoyle Jr. J, Tunik MG, Lichenstein R, et al. Association of Traumatic Brain Injuries With Vomiting in Children With Blunt Head Trauma. Ann Emerg Med [Internet]. [cited 2014 Mar 25]; Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196064414000213
6. Pearce MS, Salotti JA, Little MP, McHugh K, Lee C, Kim KP, et al. Radiation exposure from CT scans in childhood and subsequent risk of leukaemia and brain tumours: a retrospective cohort study. The Lancet. 2012 Aug;380(9840):499–505.
7. Mathews JD, Forsythe AV, Brady Z, Butler MW, Goergen SK, Byrnes GB, et al. Cancer risk in 680 000 people exposed to computed tomography scans in childhood or adolescence: data linkage study of 11 million Australians. BMJ. 2013 May 21;346(may21 1):f2360–f2360.
Competing interests: No competing interests