PI: Alexis F. Turgeon
Co-Is: François Lauzier, Lynne Moore, Sean Bagshaw, Francis Bernard, Karen Burns, Dean Fergusson, Robert Green, Donald Griesdale, Jim Kutsogiannis, François Lamontagne, Claudio Martin, Lauralyn McIntyre, Maureen Meade, Véronique Moulin, Giuseppe Pagliarello, Steven Reynolds, Andrea Rigamonti, Martin Savard, Damon Scales, Ryan Zarychanski, David Zygun
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and disability in young and otherwise healthy adults. Most deaths following severe traumatic brain injury are related to the decision made by families and medical teams to withdraw life-sustaining therapies. Since severe traumatic brain injury occurs mainly in a young, healthy population, this decision is likely to be based on the perception of an unfavorable long-term outcome. However, our current capacity to accurately predict outcome in this population is limited. In previous work, we have demonstrated a significant variation in the frequency of withdrawal of life-sustaining therapies across Canadian trauma centers. Furthermore, we found that a significant proportion of deaths occurred in the first 3 days following trauma, a time-period considered by some experts to be relatively premature for an accurate prediction of a patient’s outcome.
The results of the TBI-Prognosis study will allow for the development of a prognostic model and a clinical prediction rule using a multimodal approach of different prognostic indicators and by following their evolution over time during the acute phase of care.
This multicentric study will lead to an improvement of our ability to prognosticate and identify patients who will benefit from aggressive care during the acute phase, helping to prevent an erroneous evaluation of prognosis that could have lethal consequences when used to decide to pursue or withdraw life-sustaining therapies.
Centres
CHU de Québec – Université Laval (Québec city, Québec)
Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal (Montréal, Québec)
Montréal General (Montréal, Québec)
Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (Sherbrooke, Québec)
The Ottawa Hospital (Ottawa, Ontario)
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Toronto, Ontario)
St-Michael’s Hospital (Toronto, Ontario)
Hamilton Health Sciences Center (Hamilton, Ontario)
London Health Sciences Center (London, Ontario)
Winnipeg Health Sciences Center (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
Foothills Health Sciences Center (Calgary, Alberta)
Royal Alexandra Hospital (Edmonton, Alberta)
University of Alberta Hospital (Edmonton, Alberta)
Vancouver General Hospital (Vancouver, British Columbia)
Royal Colombian Hospital (New Westminster, British Columbia)
Royal Jubilee Hospital (Victoria, British Columbia)
Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Center (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
For more information go to clinicaltrials.gov
