Kenneth Goldblatt | October 20, 2018 | Personal Injury

Traumatic Brain Injuries lawyer in New York, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester, Goldblatt and Associates, would like to share this interesting brain injury article with you.

Despite guidelines recommending screening for hypopituitarism in patients with traumatic brain injury, researchers found a low prevalence of growth hormone deficiency in this patient population.

The researchers included 439 Danish adults who received a head trauma diagnosis and 124 healthy control patients in their population-based cohort study. All patients underwent assessment of GH secretion at a median of 2.5 years after traumatic brain injury. They measured prevalence of GH deficiency using local vs. guideline cutoffs; insulin tolerance testing, pyridostigmine/GH-releasing hormone (GHRH) or GHRH-arginine testing; and assays with different isoform specificity.

Results revealed a lower prevalence of GH deficiency, as measured by local vs. guideline cutoffs using pyridostigmine/GHRH or GHRH-arginine testing (12% vs. 19%; P<.001), as well as by insulin tolerance test (4.5% vs. 5%; P=.09). Similarly, prevalence was lower as measured by insulin tolerance test vs. pyridostigmine/GHRH or GHRH-arginine testing when using both local cutoffs (P=.006) and guideline cutoffs (P<.001). Further, only 1% of patients exhibited GH deficiency on two tests.

The assay used did not significantly alter diagnostic outcomes.

“The study confirmed a high risk of bias in the management of pituitary testing of patients with [traumatic brain injury], and stresses the importance of a proper control group and stringent GH-testing including confirmatory testing, in cohorts with low a-priori likelihood of [GH deficiency] such as in [traumatic brain injury]. Our results question the evidence for newly introduced recommendations for routine pituitary assessment in [traumatic brain injury],” the researchers wrote.

Traumatic brain injury can have long lasting consequences for the victim in extensive medical bills and post treatment. To learn more about Traumatic Brain Injury, contact the New York brain injury lawyers at Goldblatt and Associates to schedule a free consultation. We serve accident victims in New York including New York City, Bronx, Brooklyn, Westchester and Putnam Counties, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. We offer a free consultation, and receive no fee unless we are successful. Call 1-800-567-9888 today.