title: Repeat cranial tomography in patients with mild head injury and stable neurological examination ---- a perspective from a developing country.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the frequency of altered findings on repeat cranial tomography (CT) in patients with mild head injury along with stable neurological examination at tertiary care hospital.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study was done in the Department of Radiology, Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi from January 2008 to September 2010. All patients with mild head injury in terms of Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) who underwent repeat scan without clinical or neurological deterioration in the emergency department of a tertiary care centre were included. The collected data were accordingly entered and analyzed by the principal investigator using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In all 275 patients, only 17 (6%) of the patients were found worseing on repeat CT, 120  (43.63%) scans improved, 138 (50.18%) unchanged and 17 (6.18%) worsened. None of these patients showed signs of clinical deterioration.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that for patients with mild head injury and stable neurological examination, only 6% of them show deterioration on repeat CT, especially when patients'GCS is below 13.
authors: Department of Radiology, Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan.
authors: Sadaf
authors: S
authors: Nasir
authors: Manzar
authors: M
authors: Hussain
mesh_terms: D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003906:Developing Countries; D015600:Glasgow Coma Scale; D006801:Humans; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed