Clinical usefulness of bedside intracranial morphological monitoring: mobile computerized tomography in the neurosurgery intensive care unit. Report of three cases.

Abstract

The practice of modern neurointensive care is based on the use of multimodality monitoring to respond rapidly to physiological, biochemical, or morphological changes and avoid secondary brain injury. Until recently, one important monitoring method, computerized tomography (CT), has not been available for bedside use. The authors have over 3 years of experience with the routine use of bedside CT scanning and have developed their own method of scanning the patients in their beds. In this report, they describe three illustrative cases in which the mobile CT scanner was of great value in the management of difficult neurosurgical intensive care problems. It is concluded that the availability of bedside morphological monitoring in the neurosurgery intensive care unit is of great help in management and clinical decision making.