title: Head trauma and nonsurvival--a sample survey.
abstract: A retrospective survivor study of 42 patients with severe brain and multisystem injury is presented. All patients were treated with vigorous trauma/neurosurgical techniques. Thirty-seven patients in this series had a Glasgow Coma Score of 3 at the initial examination, and none survived. Since all 37 patients at initial emergency room evaluation showed persistent apnea at 40-60 minutes after injury, a diagnosis of dead on arrival (DOA) might have been appropriate. Cost analysis shows that the direct cost for the 37 cases was $27,000 per patient, or $990,000 for the 37 patients with no survivors. A diagnosis of DOA would have been $200 per patient. Many implications can be derived from these figures.
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurosurgery, University of California, Irvine Medical Center, Orange 92668.
authors.forename: E L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Foltz
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rodriquez
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000191:economics / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003365:Costs and Cost Analysis; D005260:Female; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged