ArticleThe western journal of emergency medicine2021
Intracranial Traumatic Hematoma Detection in Children Using a Portable Near-infrared Spectroscopy Device.
Article in The western journal of emergency medicine, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Near Infrared Spectroscopy as a Diagnostic Tool for Screening of Intracranial Hematomas; A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Archives of academic emergency medicine · 2025Review
- Noninvasive Neuromonitoring Modalities in Children Part I: Pupillometry, Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, and Transcranial Doppler Ultrasonography.Neurocritical care · 2024Review
- Non-ionizing Imaging for the Emergency Department Assessment of Pediatric Minor Head Trauma.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2022Review
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 6 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionWe sought to validate a handheld, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) device for detecting intracranial hematomas in children with head injury.
methodsEligible patients were those <18 years old who were admitted to the emergency department at three academic children's hospitals with head trauma and who received a clinically indicated head computed tomography (HCT). Measurements were obtained by a blinded operator in bilateral frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital regions. Qualifying hematomas were a priori determined to be within the brain scanner's detection limits of >3.5 milliliters in volume and <2.5 centimeters from the surface of the brain. The device's measurements were positive if the difference in optical density between hemispheres was >0.2 on three successive scans. We calculated diagnostic performance measures with corresponding exact two-sided 95% Clopper-Pearson confidence intervals (CI). Hypothesis test evaluated whether predictive performance exceeded chance agreement (predictive Youden's index > 0).
resultsA total of 464 patients were enrolled and 344 met inclusion for primary data analysis: 10.5% (36/344) had evidence of a hematoma on HCT, and 4.7% (16/344) had qualifying hematomas. The handheld brain scanner demonstrated a sensitivity of 58.3% (21/36) and specificity of 67.9% (209/308) for hematomas of any size. For qualifying hematomas the scanner was designed to detect, sensitivity was 81% (13/16) and specificity was 67.4% (221/328). Predictive performance exceeded chance agreement with a predictive Youden's index of 0.11 (95% CI, 0.10 - 0.15; P < 0.001) for all hematomas, and 0.09 (95% CI, 0.08 - 0.12; P < 0.001) for qualifying hematomas.
conclusionThe handheld brain scanner can non-invasively detect a subset of intracranial hematomas in children and may serve an adjunctive role to head-injury neuroimaging decision rules that predict the risk of clinically significant intracranial pathology after head trauma.
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