Visualization of Intracranial Pressure Insults After Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: Influence of Individualized Limits of Reactivity

Cerebrovascular pressure reactivity and brain tissue oxygen monitoring provide complementary information regarding the lower and upper limits of cerebral blood flow control in traumatic brain injury: a CAnadian High Resolution-TBI (CAHR-TBI) cohort study

BACKGROUND

Brain tissue oxygen tension (PbtO₂) and cerebrovascular pressure reactivity monitoring have emerged as potential modalities to individualize care in moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). The relationship between these modalities has had limited exploration. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between PbtO₂ and cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) and how this relationship is modified by the state of cerebrovascular pressure reactivity.

METHODS

A retrospective multi-institution cohort study utilizing prospectively collected high-resolution physiologic data from the CAnadian High Resolution-TBI (CAHR-TBI) Research Collaborative database collected between 2011 and 2021 was performed. Included in the study were critically ill TBI patients with intracranial pressure (ICP), arterial blood pressure (ABP), and PbtO₂ monitoring treated in any one of three CAHR-TBI affiliated adult intensive care units (ICU). The outcome of interest was how PbtO₂ and CPP are related over a cohort of TBI patients and how this relationship is modified by the state of cerebrovascular reactivity, as determined using the pressure reactivity index (PRx).

RESULTS

A total of 77 patients met the study inclusion criteria with a total of 377,744 min of physiologic data available for the analysis. PbtO₂ produced a triphasic curve when plotted against CPP like previous population-based plots of cerebral blood flow (CBF) versus CPP. The triphasic curve included a plateau region flanked by regions of relative ischemia (hypoxia) and hyperemia (hyperoxia). The plateau region shortened when cerebrovascular pressure reactivity was disrupted compared to when it was intact.

CONCLUSIONS

In this exploratory analysis of a multi-institution high-resolution physiology TBI database, PbtO₂ seems to have a triphasic relationship with CPP, over the entire cohort. The CPP range over which the plateau exists is modified by the state of cerebrovascular reactivity. This indicates that in critically ill TBI patients admitted to ICU, PbtO₂ may be reflective of CBF.

Cerebral Autoregulation Monitoring in Traumatic Brain Injury: An Overview of Recent Advances in Personalized Medicine

Impaired cerebral autoregulation (CA) in moderate/severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) has been identified as a strong associate with poor long-term outcomes, with recent data highlighting its dominance over cerebral physiologic dysfunction seen in the acute phase post injury. With advances in bedside continuous cerebral physiologic signal processing, continuously derived metrics of CA capacity have been described over the past two decades, leading to improvements in cerebral physiologic insult detection and development of novel personalized approaches to TBI care in the intensive care unit (ICU). This narrative review focuses on highlighting the concept of continuous CA monitoring and consequences of impairment in moderate/severe TBI. Further, we provide a comprehensive description and overview of the main personalized cerebral physiologic targets, based on CA monitoring, that are emerging as strong associates with patient outcomes. CA-based personalized targets, such as optimal cerebral perfusion pressure (CPPopt), lower/upper limit of regulation (LLR/ULR), and individualized intra-cranial pressure (iICP) are positioned to change the way we care for TBI patients in the ICU, moving away from the "one treatment fits all" paradigm of current guideline-based therapeutic approaches, towards a true personalized medicine approach tailored to the individual patient. Future perspectives regarding research needs in this field are also discussed.