BACKGROUND: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows precise detection of intracranial lesions in head injured @entity1 . We compared intracranial lesions detected in MRI to somatosensory evoked potentials (SEP) and brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEP) concerning their prognostic value. METHODS: Thirty @entity1 with @entity131 and prolonged recovery were studied. Size, side and number of 474 intra- and extraparenchymal lesions as well as lesion localisation based on a specific anatomical classification were entered into a database (a total of 7080 data). In addition, we recorded median-nerve SEP (M-SEP), tibial nerve SEP (T-SEP) and BAEP in all of the @entity1 . FINDINGS: M-SEP and Glasgow-Outcome-Score (GOS) one year after injury correlated significantly to @entity1 with lesions in the brainstem (p<0.0001) and corpus callosum (p<0.001). Similar results were found for T-SEP (p<0.0001). All @entity1 with bicortical loss of M-SEP had an unfavourable outcome (GOS 2). Among the analysis of lesion volume, only the volume of @entity75 correlated to GOS (p<0.001), but this was not found for @entity75 . However, comparing the vegetative (GOS 2) to the non-vegetative group ( @entity12861 -5), for both callosal (p<0.02) and brainstem (p<0.005) lesions a significant correlation was found. INTERPRETATION: MRI does not improve the prognostic reliability of SEP in @entity542 but offers possibilities for clarifying electrophysiological and clinical pathologies. This explains that the volume of @entity75 , essentially influencing the clinical outcome, is strongly correlated to T-SEP and M-SEP. In contrast, @entity75 did not show a clear relationship to outcome despite large @entity75 (>4 ml) which tended to poor outcome. In conclusion, we suggest that MRI and SEP are supplementary to each other concerning prognostic evaluation.

Evoked potentials in acute head injured XXXX with MRI-detected intracerebral lesions.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['patients'] @entity131 :: ('MESH:D001930', 'Disease') :: ['traumatic brain injury'] @entity12861 :: ('2354', 'Gene') :: ['GOS 3'] @entity75 :: ('MESH:D001927', 'Disease') :: ['brainstem lesions', 'callosal lesions'] @entity542 :: ('MESH:D006259', 'Disease') :: ['head injury']
@entity1 :: (9606,Species) :: ['patients']
