Most treatments for severe head injuries caused by car crashes usually include corticosteroids because most doctors believe that reducing inflammation of the head can prevent potential complications brought by the inflammation. However, Dr. Phil Alderson, lead author of the Cochrane study, said corticosteroids may actually increase the risk of death among patients with traumatic head injuries.
In a study that included 4,985 patients, 21% or 1,052 patients who were treated with steroids died, compared to 18% who were given placebo.
From Medicine World.Org:
The common use of anti-inflammatory steroids for traumatic head injuries like those from car crashes may actually increase the risk of death, according to a new review of studies about the therapy.
The large study found that patients treated with corticosteroids were 18 percent more likely to die from their brain injury than those who did not take the drugs. Among the patients who received steroid therapy, 21 percent, or 1,052 of the 4,985 treated, died, compared to 18 percent who received a placebo.
“The significant increase in death with steroids found in this trial suggests that steroids should no longer be routinely used in people with traumatic head injury,” says Dr. Phil Alderson, lead author of the Cochrane study.
Corticosteroids are “widely used in medicine to treat inflammation,” Alderson explains. “It is thought that some of the damage after a brain injury results from inflammation following the initial injury and that reducing inflammation might reduce this secondary injury”.
In the case of severe head injuries, the inflammation leads to swelling of the brain and its surrounding tissues, which in turns creates pressure in the skull that may lead to complications or death.
According to Dr. Phil Alderson, corticosteroids do not prevent the risk of infection among patients. He suggested that these drugs rather increase the risk of death because they interfere with the function of the adrenal gland.
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