Abstract

Objective:
Previous studies have shown that measuring the optic nerve sheath diameter (ONSD) can be a useful indicator in cases with ICP rising. The present study was designed to determine the agreement rate between performing Ultrasound (US) compared to Brain Computed Tomography (CT) scanning in the diagnosis of ICP rising through measuring the ONSDamong patients with traumatic brain injury.
Methods:
The present study was a cross-sectional study performed among patients with head trauma during a six-month period in the year 2015. All of the included patients had an indication of performing brain CT. The optic nerve ultrasonography wasperformed by an expert emergency medicine specialist who was blinded to the results of brain CT scan in these patients. The result of ONSD in US and brain CT scan were measured by one radiologist who was unaware of the study, and finally the kappa coefficient for the results of ONSD in US and brain CT were calculated.
Results:
60 patients with head trauma (70% male) with a mean age of 36.4 ± 15.5 years were investigated.The kappa coefficient agreement between results of performing US and brain CT scan to measure ONSD was 85.7%. The p value for Mc-Nemar test was obtained 1.0 revealed that there was no evidence against the agreement between results of US and CT scan in our patients.
Conclusion:
The results showed that there was an excellent agreement between US and brain CT scan for the diagnosis of ICP rising through measuring ONSD in patients with head trauma.

Key words: nerve sheath; Ultrasonography; Computing Tomography; Skull Fractures