Persons with severe traumatic brain injury are frequently administered fluids to maintain their blood pressures. An adequate blood pressure translates into a sufficient amount of blood reaching the brain in order to provide needed oxygenation of brain tissue. If blood pressures are not maintained at proper levels then an individual's brain will not receive sufficient oxygenated blood. Oxygen is the "food" for the brain and it's absence will cause brain cells to rapidly die.
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, August 30th issue suggests that persons who are given saline solution rather than albumin, a protein solution manufactured from the blood, have double the the survival rate at 24 months after injury.
"We determined that the 2-year mortality rate was significantly high in those patients who received albumin-based fluids compared to those who received saline, particularly those patients with severe brain injuries who presented with traumatic coma," said the study's lead author, Dr. John Myburgh, director of the division of critical care and trauma at the George Institute for International Health, in Sydney, Australia.
"Given the significant difference in mortality that we observed, we recommend that albumin-based fluids be avoided for the acute fluid resuscitation of patients with traumatic brain injury," added Myburgh, who's also a professor of critical care at the University of New South Wales.
After two years, the researchers behind the new study found that people with traumatic brain injuries who received albumin had a 63 percent higher risk of dying than those given saline. For those with severe brain injuries, the albumin group had an 88 percent increased risk of death compared to the saline group.
Still needed are answers to the critical question of why saline administration produced a better outcome than the albumin.
Read more about this study by clicking here.