ReviewBMC emergency medicine2023
War-related traumatic brain injuries during the Syrian armed conflict in Damascus 2014-2017: a cohort study and a literature review.
Review in BMC emergency medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Psychological and psychosocial interventions for trauma-related psychological distress in adults living in ongoing conflict.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2026Article
- Profile and management of war casualties in the context of limited resources and conflict in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: a retrospective observational study.BMC public health · 2025Observational
- Forecasting COVID-19 inpatient mortality using fundamental parameters in resource-constrained settings: a countrywide multi-center cohort study.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- War-related traumatic brain injury in Gaza: a multi-center prospective analysis of patterns and outcomes.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Heart vs. Brain in a Warzone: The Effects of War on Acute Cardiovascular and Neurological Emergencies.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Post-crisis health reality and wellbeing of children within Syria: a scoping review of research from 2012 to 2024.Conflict and health · 2025Review
- Computed tomography imaging findings in head injury victims of conflict in Northern Ethiopia treated at the University of Gondar comprehensive specialized hospital.Emergency radiology · 2025Article
- Transcranial-Penetrating Craniocerebral Injury Inflicted by a Nail Gun: A Technical Case Report.Korean journal of neurotrauma · 2024Article
- Lung Cancer Diagnoses and Outcomes During the Syrian War, 2011-2018.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- Characteristics of injuries during the 2006 Lebanon conflict: a three-center retrospective study of survivors, 16 years after the conflict.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Lessons learnt from the first wave of COVID-19 in Damascus, Syria: a multicentre retrospective cohort study.BMJ open · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe decade-long Syrian armed conflict killed or injured more than 11% of the Syrian population. Head and neck injuries are the most frequent cause of war-related trauma, about half of which are brain injuries. Reports about Syrian brain trauma victims were published from neighboring countries; However, none are available from Syrian hospitals. This study aims to report war-related traumatic brain injuries from the Syrian capital.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort study between 2014 and 2017 at Damascus Hospital, the largest public hospital in Damascus, Syria. Target patients were the victims of combat-related traumatic brain injuries who arrived alive and were admitted to the neurosurgery department or to another department but followed by the neurosurgery team. The collected data included the mechanism, type, and site of injury based on imaging findings; types of invasive interventions; intensive-care unit (ICU) admissions; as well as neurological status at admission and discharge including several severity scales.
resultsOur sample consisted of 195 patients; Ninety-six of them were male young adults, in addition to 40 females and 61 children. Injuries were caused by shrapnel in 127 (65%) cases, and by gunshots in the rest, and most of them (91%) were penetrating. Sixty-eight patients (35%) were admitted to the ICU, and 56 (29%) underwent surgery. Neurological impairment was reported in 49 patients (25%) at discharge, and the mortality rate during hospitalization was 33%. Mortality and neurological impairment associated significantly with higher values on clinical and imaging severity scores.
conclusionsThis study captured the full spectrum of war-related brain injuries of civilians and armed personnel in Syria without the delay required to transport patients to neighboring countries. Although the clinical presentation of injuries at admission was not as severe as that in previous reports, the inadequate resources (i.e., ventilators and operation rooms) and the lack of previous experience with similar injuries might have resulted in the higher mortality rate. Clinical and imaging severity scales can provide a handy tool in identifying cases with low probability of survival especially with the shortage of personal and physical resources.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.