Blood screening test to detect traumatic brain injury
According to a paper published in this month's Journal of Emergency Nursing, a blood screening test is being developed to detect a traumatic brain injury as an alternative to CT scans.
The screening called S-100B is a serum protein bio-marker that rises sharply following a brain injury. If the blood test is administered within 4 hours of the traumatic brain injury, the S-100B marker can detect brain hemorrhages and skull fractures.
Research is now ongoing at the University of Rochester Medical Center where doctors plan to apply this test to 1500 head injury patients and accumulate the date for further evaluation and approval by the Food and Drug Administration
Wow, imagine that eh? A simple blood test! In the emergency room, immediately following my car accident, they did a cat scan that showed them nothing.
It was 2 - 3 months later when I started to exhibit facial ticks that were so intense I saw a neurologist right away. He game me medication and ordered an MRI which showed 6 hemorrhages in the frontal lobe.
If only that blood test was done on me in the emergency room.
Don
Posted by: Don Parker | April 27, 2009 at 06:13 PM