The Value of Serum BNP for the Diagnosis of Intracranial Injury in Head Trauma

Objectives: Head injuries are the leading cause of death in persons less than 45 years old. In order to diagnose these patients, cranial computed tomography (CT) is used. Brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) was isolated first from the cerebral ventricles. The aim of this study was to research whether bedside BNP measurement has a place in determining intracranial injury in patients admitted to the emergency department (ED) with head trauma. Methods: The study was done prospectively in the ED of the Trakya University Hospital. Patients admitted to the ED because of head injury (100 patients), and a control group (20 healthy volunteers) were enrolled in the study. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the binary groups, and Kruskal-Wallis test was used to make multi-group comparison. A p-value of <0.05 was considered to be significant. Results: Demographic features of the subjets showed that eighty-one patients (81%) were male, and 19 (19%) were female. The median serum BNP level was 5.00 pg/ml in a total 86 patients in the cranial CT (–) group. The mean serum BNP level in 14 patients of the cranial CT (+) group was 6.15 pg/ml. There was no statistically significant difference between these two groups from the point of serum BNP levels (p>0.05). Conclusions: The study showed that serum BNP examination to reveal any intracranial injury in patients with head trauma was poor.