Pathophysiology and treatment of traumatic brain edema

Abstract

Traumatic brain edema is a secondary phenomenon of traumatic brain injury. It manifests during a time interval by escape of fluid from the vascular compartment to extracellular spaces (vasogenic edema) or due to failure of energy pumps to remove intracellular fluid resulting from hypoxic mitochondrial damage (cellular or cytotoxic edema). The above process is a cascade mechanism mediated by several biochemicals and vasoactive substances.

Keywords

• blood brain barrier
• brain edema
• head injury
• intracranial pressure