Simultaneous Monitoring of Intracranial Pressure and Cerebral Blood Flow in Patients with Severe Brain Injury

37 patients with severe brain injury (admission Glasgow Coma Score 8 or below) were simultaneously monitored for intracranial and cerebral perfusion pressure and cerebral blood flow using transcranial Doppler ultrasonography. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to analyze relationships between quantitative variables. It was established that the increase of intracranial pressure leads to formation of Doppler ultrasonographic pattern of reduced perfusion, which involves relative decrease of mean linear blood flow velocity (primarily due to decrease of end-diastolic blood flow velocity) and increase of peripheral resistivity indices (pulsatility and resistivity indices).

Keywords: Severe brain injury; Cerebral blood flow; Intracranial pressure; Cerebral perfusion pressure

Abbreviation: CBF: Cerebral Blood Flow; CPP: Cerebral Perfusion Pressure; AP_mean: Mean Arterial Pressure; ICP: Intracranial Pressure; TCDU: Transcranial Doppler Ultrasonography; BI: Brain Injury; AP: Arterial Pressure; LBFV: Linear Blood Flow Velocity; DC: Decompressive Craniectomy; SaO₂: Saturation; AP_syst: Systolic Arterial Pressure; AP_diast: Diastolic Arterial Pressure; MCA: Middle Cerebral Artery; LBFV_mean: Mean Linear Blood Flow Velocity; LBFV_syst : Systolic Linear Blood Flow Velocity; LBFVdiast: Diastolic Linear Blood Flow Velocity; PI: Pulsatility Index; RI: Resistivity Index; М: Mean Value; SD: Standard Deviation; CI: Confidence Interval