Auditory evoked potentials in coma after closed head injury: a clinical-neurophysiologic coma scale for predicting outcome.
We studied auditory evoked potentials in 45 head-injured patients. All but three were comatose or stuporous at the time of study. Preservation of brainstem auditory or long-latency auditory evoked potentials predicted good outcome. The Glasgow coma scale (GCS), the clinical subtotal of the neurophysiologic coma scale (NPCS), and the NPCS had predictive accuracies of 71%, 82%, and 82%. Although there were 22 falsely pessimistic predictions with the GCS and 9% with the clinical subtotal of the NPCS, there were no falsely pessimistic predictions with the NPCS.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D003128:Coma / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000150:complications*; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory; D005123:Eye / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007427:Intracranial Pressure; D008875:Middle Aged; D009420:Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology; D011379:Prognosis; D011680:Pupil; D012018:Reflex / Q000502:physiology; D014949:Wounds, Nonpenetrating / Q000150:complications*