Background:

A severe traumatic brain injury is a frequent pathology, it implies a non-negligible morbidity and mortality. Hypernatremia could be considered a factor associated with poor prognosis in order to optimize treatment in the group of high-risk patients. We aim to determine if hypernatremia is a prognostic factor of mortality in patients with severe traumatic brain injury in a public hospital which is a local reference center in trauma.

Material and Methods:

We performed a non-probabilistic sampling of adult patients of both sexes with severe traumatic brain injury from the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital Regional Docente de Trujillo, Perú during the 2015-2018 period.

Results:

Mortality in the group with and without hypernatremia was 38% and 6% respectively (p=0.001). The difference in natremia mean values between the group with and without mortality was 21,86 (95% CI 18.2-25.5) (p=0.000). In the multivariate analysis, we found hypernatremia with adjusted OR of 16.73 (95% CI 1.96-142.82) (p=0.01). The ROC curve showed adequate performance to predict mortality, with an AUC 0.878 (95% CI 0.77-0.97) (p=0.00).

Conclusion:

Hypernatremia is a prognostic factor of mortality in patients with severe traumatic brain injury.