Decompressive Craniectomy in Traumatic Brain Injury-Craniectomy-Related and Cranioplasty-Related Complications in a Single Center.

OBJECTIVE: Decompressive craniectomy (DC) relieves intracranial hypertension after severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), but it has been associated with poor clinical outcome in 2 recent randomized controlled trials. In this study, we investigated the incidence and explanatory variables for DC-related and cranioplasty (CP)-related complications after TBI.

METHODS: In this retrospective study, we identified 61 patients with TBI who were treated with DC in the neurointensive care unit, Uppsala University Hospital, Sweden, between 2008 and 2018. Demography, admission status, radiology, and clinical outcome were analyzed.

RESULTS: Eleven patients (18%) were reoperated because of postoperative hemorrhage after DC. Six (10%) developed postoperative infection during neurointensive care. Twenty-eight (46%) developed subdural hygromas and 10 (16%) received a permanent cerebrospinal fluid shunt. Sixteen patients (26%) died before CP. Median time to CP was 7 months (range, 2-19 months) and 32 (71%) were operated on with autologous bone and 13 (29%) with synthetic material primarily. In 9 patients with autologous bone (29%), the CP had to be replaced because of bone resorption/infection, whereas this did not occur after synthetic material (P = 0.04). However, all 4 postoperative hemorrhages after CP occurred when synthetic material was used (P = 0.005).

CONCLUSIONS: DC and CP surgery have a high risk for complications, leading to additional neurosurgery in about one third of cases. Synthetic CP materials may decrease the risk of reoperation, but special care with hemostasis is required because of increased risk of postoperative hemorrhage. Future trials need to address these topics to further improve the outcome for these patients.