Research Article Early Hyperglycemia in Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Predicts for Mortality, Prolonged Duration of Mechanical Ventilation, and Intensive Care Stay

Copyright © 2015 Shu-Ling Chong et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We aim to study the association between hyperglycemia and in-hospital outcomes among children with moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). This retrospective cohort study was conducted in a tertiary pediatric hospital between 2003 and 2013. All patients < 16 years old who presented to the Emergency Department within 24 hours of head injury with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) ≤ 13 were included. Our outcomes of interest were death, 14 ventilation-free, 14 pediatric intensive care unit-(PICU-) free, and 28 hospital-free days. Hyperglycemia was defined as glucose> 200mg/dL (11.1mmol/L). Among the 44 patients analyzed, the median age was 8.6 years (interquartile range (IQR) 5.0–11.0). Median GCS and pediatric trauma scores were 7 (IQR 4–10) and 4 (IQR 3–6), respectively. Initial hyperglycemia was associated with death (37 % in the hyperglycemia group versus 8