Transiently Increased Basilar Artery Flow Velocity following Severe Head Injury: A Time Course Transcranial Doppler Study

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Abstract
Background and Purpose. Transcranial Doppler ultrasonography has been used to study changes in cerebral hemodynamics following head injury. However, most studies evaluated the anterior circulation and little information exists on transcranial Doppler of the vertebrobasilar arteries after head injury. Methods. Thirty-two patients with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score between 4–8 and 11 patients with a GCS score between 9–14 were studied using transcranial Doppler ultrasonography for the first 10 days after injury. Daily variations in the mean blood flow velocities of all major cerebral arteries were recorded. Results. In patients with GCS score between 4–8, the mean blood flow velocities in the middle cerebral and basilar arteries gradually increased beginning on day 2 postinjury and peaked on the 4th–5th day after injury. Those changes were more prominent, and appeared earlier, in the basilar artery. The ratio between the mean flow velocities of the middle cerebral artery and the basilar artery d...