title: Clinical Course Score (CCS): a new clinical score to evaluate efficacy of neurotrauma treatment in traumatic brain injury and subarachnoid hemorrhage.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Neurotrauma continues to represent a challenging public health issue requiring continual improvement in therapeutic approaches. As no such current system exists, we present in this study the Clinical Course Score (CCS) as a new clinical score to evaluate the efficacy of neurotrauma treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  The CCS was calculated in neurotrauma patients to be the difference between the grade of the Glasgow Outcome Scale 6 months after discharge from our department and the grade of a 1 to 5 point reduced Glasgow Coma Scale on admission. We assessed the CCS in a total of 248 patients (196 traumatic brain injury [TBI] patients and 52 subarachnoid hemorrhage [SAH] patients) who were treated in our Department of Neurosurgery between January 2011 and December 2012.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found negative CCS grades both in mild TBI and in mild SAH patients. In patients with severe TBI or SAH, we found positive CCS grades. In SAH patients, we found higher CCS scores in younger patients compared with elderly subjects in both mild and severe cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The CCS can be useful in evaluating different therapeutic approaches during neurotrauma therapy. This new score might improve assessment of beneficial effects of therapeutic procedures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital, Erlangen, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brandner
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kellermann
authors.forename: Nirjhar
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hore
authors.forename: Yavor
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bozhkov
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Buchfelder
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D015600:Glasgow Coma Scale; D023261:Glasgow Outcome Scale; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D013345:Subarachnoid Hemorrhage / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D015599:Trauma Severity Indices; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult