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The recognition of the localization and spread of traumatic damage to the brain in craniocerebral injury in children is a pressing problem. The authors studied the possibilities of monophoton emission computed tomography (MECT) with the use of the radiopharmaceutical preparation Ceretec in recognition and visualization of foci of traumatic damage to the brain in these patients. The study was conducted on 20 children with severe craniocerebral trauma in parallel with verification by computed X-ray tomography, electroencephalography and mapping of the brain potentials, and rheoencephalography. The results of the study showed high diagnostic possibilities of the method in detecting ischemic foci in the brain. A craniocerebral trauma in children was found to be characterized by multiple ischemic deficits in the damaged and intact hemispheres and particularly in the basal parts of the brain. The information obtained by the MECT method is independent in character and is not a duplicate of the findings of CT, EEG, REG, sonography, etc.

The character of craniocerebral injuries in 2743 children admitted to a children's traumatological division within 1976 to 1979 is analyzed. Clinical data characterizing craniocerebral injuries of various gravity are presented, and principles of individualized treatment of the patients are described. A great diagnostic value of special examination methods, such as cerebrospinal fluid examination, electroencephalography, rheoencephalography, and electromyography is demonstrated. The multiform neuropsychic changes revealed in most of 192 children on subsequent clinico-psychological examinations stress the urgent necessity of purposeful rehabilitation measures.

Scintigraphy of the skeleton with 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate was performed before operation and 3.6 and 12 mos. after allocranioplasty in 15 children aged 3 to 15 with posttraumatic defects of the bones of the cranial vault. Scintigraphic results were compared with x-ray and clinical findings. The interrelationship of the time course of a scintigraphic picture of an affected zone with x-ray findings of graft readjustment at different time after operation was established. In the authors opinion, combined x-ray and scintigraphic investigations of the cranial bones can be used for objective assessment of the morphofunctional state of a graft after allocranioplasty.

The levels of higher fatty acids in the blood plasma and erythrocyte membranes were assessed in 25 children aged 3 to 15 years with severe traumatic lesions of the brain. The study was conducted with the purpose of deriving criteria indicative of the depth and severity of traumatic damage to the brain. The most informative parameters having diagnostic significance were established. The results of the studies performed suggest that it is advisable to include drugs containing essential fatty acids into the complex of therapeutic measures.

The authors analyzed the results of the biomicroscopy examination of the microcirculation in patients aged 2.5 to 15 years in the acute period of craniocerebral trauma. It was established that the changes in the condition of the conjunctival microvessels reflect the general cerebral microcirculation impairments following craniocerebral injury, their severity depending on the degree of brain involvement. They are characterized by spastic arterioles, distended venules as well as the development of the sludging phenomenon and the disruption of the capillary blood flow depending on the severity of craniocerebral trauma.

Using radioindicative methods, cerebral hemodynamics was studied in 62 children aged 3 to 15 years in the acute period of head injury. The diagnostic findings of focal intracranial lesions are presented. On the basis of the clinical-neurologic findings, the patients were divided into three groups depending on the degree of the severity of traumatic lesion to the brain. Patients with mild and moderately grave craniocerebral injury were shown to have a symmetric decrease in the blood flow intensity while severe traumas were associated with disorders of vascular passage of the preparation in one cerebral hemisphere in the presence of general reduction in the cerebral blood flow.