Visualizing cerebrovascular autoregulation insults and their association with outcome in adult and paediatric traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study is to assess visually the impact of duration and intensity of cerebrovascular autoregulation insults on 6-month neurological outcome in severe traumatic brain injury. Material and methods: Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected minute-by-minute intracranial pressure (ICP) and mean arterial blood pressure data of 259 adult and 99 paediatric traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients from multiple European centres. The relationship of the 6-month Glasgow Outcome Scale with cerebrovascular autoregulation insults (defined as the low-frequency autoregulation index above a certain threshold during a certain time) was visualized in a colour-coded plot. The analysis was performed separately for autoregulation insults occurring with cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) below 50 mmHg, with ICP above 25 mmHg and for the subset of adult patients that did not undergo decompressive craniectomy. Results: The colour-coded plots showed a time-intensity-dependent association with outcome for cerebrovascular autoregulation insults in adult and paediatric TBI patients. Insults with a low-frequency autoregulation index above 0.2 were associated with worse outcomes and below −0.6 with better outcomes, with and approximately exponentially decreasing transition curve between the two intensity thresholds. All insults were associated with worse outcomes when CPP was below 50 mmHg or ICP was above 25 mmHg. Conclusions: The colour-coded plots indicate that cerebrovascular autoregulation is disturbed in a dynamic manner, such that duration and intensity play a role in the determination of a zone associated with better neurological outcome.