[Cerebral oedema in children compared to cerebral oedema in adults].

About 50% of deaths, in the pediatric population between 1-15 years of age, are due to trauma. This high mortality rate, associated with the frequent sequelae, leading sometimes to severe handicaps, constitutes a major problem for public health in the developed countries. Pediatric trauma has some particularities, due to anatomic and physiologic differences, and to specific injury mechanisms. In a busy traumatology center, a child will be admitted daily in the emergency department with head trauma injury. The anaesthesiologist must have a complete understanding of the pathophysiology involved in this clinical presentation if one wishes to develop a practical knowledge of initial management of such patients. Traumatic brain injury may have intracranial and systemic effects that combine to give global cerebral ischaemia.