Strategy to Determine Head Injuries Requiring Surgery in Children

Study in a Sentence: Researchers tested three clinical decision rules for determining head injuries requiring surgical management in a trial involving 20,000 children and found that only the one from The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network can accurately predict injuries requiring neurosurgery in the absence of CT scans without missing a single child that at needed surgical treatment (i.e., no false negatives). 

Healthy for Humans: The results of this study can be directly translated into clinical practice and will reduce health care costs and unnecessary exposures to radiation in the clinical management of children with head injuries.

Redefining Research: By conducting this study in a human clinical trial rather than in animal models, the study yielded results that can be quickly and directly translated into clinical practice for the relevant populations.