Cisternostomy as an Adjuvant or Standalone Approach for Management of Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and Network Meta-Analysis.

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of morbidity in all age groups worldwide. Decompressive craniectomy (DC) is a salvage procedure in patients with TBI. The outcome and quality of life following DC is questionable. Basal cisternostomy (BC) has been proposed to reduce edema and lead to brain relaxation. It was initially used as an adjunct in TBI patients, thereby improving outcomes. With gaining popularity among neurosurgeons, BC was used as a standalone approach in TBI patients. This network meta-analysis aims to analyze the role of BC either as an adjunct or as a standalone approach in managing TBI patients.
Methods: A comprehensive search of electronic databases (PubMed and SCOPUS) was performed using the search strategy using the field terms and medical subheading terms (MeSH Terms) to retrieve studies describing the role of BC in patients with TBI either as an adjunct with DC or standalone treatment and their outcome.
Results: Thirty-one articles were selected for full-text review and 18 articles were selected for the final analysis. BC alone group was found to have minimum in-hospital mortality (odds ratio [OR], 0.348; 95% credible interval [CrI], 0.254 to 0.477) followed by DC combined with BC group (OR, 0.645; 95% CrI, 0.476 to 0.875). DC combined with the BC group was found to have a minimum duration of mechanical ventilation (OR, 0.114; 95% CrI, 0.005 to 2.451) followed by the BC alone group (OR, 0.604; 95% CrI, 0.024 to 15.346). DC combined with the BC group were found to have the maximum Glasgow Outcome Scale score (OR, 1.661; 95% CrI, 0.907 to 3.041) followed by the BC alone group (OR, 1.553; 95% CrI, 0.907 to 3.041).
Conclusions: Our analysis showed that BC alone was associated with lower in-hospital mortality rates in TBI patients. DC with BC had decreased the requirement of mechanical ventilation. However, larger multi-centric studies from other parts of the world are required to confirm these findings.
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