Cushing's ulcer in traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) remains a complicated and urgent disease in our modernized cities. It becomes now a public health disease. We have got more and more patients in Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit following motor vehicle accidents and others causes. TBI brings multiple disorders, from the primary injury to secondary injury. The body received the disturbances in the brain, in the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, in the gastric mucosa, in the immune and neuroendocrine systems. The mortality of TBI is more than 50 000 deaths / year, the third of the mortality of all injuries. Cushing ulcer is one of the severe complications of TBI and its mortality rate is more than 50%. Many studies have improved the management of TBI and the associated complications to give patients a better outcome. Furthers studies need to be done based on the similar methodology to clarify the different steps of the HPA axis and the neuroendocrine change associated. The aim of the present review is to assess the clinical and endocrinal features of hypopituitarism and stress ulcer following TBI.