Investigating the diagnostic effectiveness of ubiquitin c-terminal hydraulase (UCH-L1) levels in children with minor head trauma

Head trauma in childhood accounts for an important part of patients who present to the emergency departments with trauma. Head trauma affects the stage of growth and development in children during their growing period and therefore should be evaluated differently from adult patients. Brain Computerized Tomography (BCT) has become the gold standart in detecting intracranial injuries in patients presenting with minor head trauma but its wide spread and unnecessary use causes an increase in health expenses and radiation risks in the long term period. Our aim was to investigate whether Ubiquitin Carboxy Terminal Hidraulase L1 (UCH-L1) levels can be an alternative to BCT in patients aged between 0-18 who present to the emergency department with minor head trauma. This study was performed between 01.03.2019 and 27.02.2020 in Uludağ University Medical Faculty (UUMF) Hospital Emergency Department 60 patients within the age group 0-18 years old presenting with minor head trauma and Glacsow Coma Score (GCS) 14-15 who underwent BCT and 20 patients with other minor traumas or other medical reasons were evaluated prospectively. Patient's age, gender, hospital admission dates (day, month, year, hour), Glasgow Coma Score, injury site, type of injury, time of trauma, hospital arrival time, examination time and serum UCH-L1 levels were recorded. UCH-L1 levels in patients with minor head trauma were higher than other group howewer it was not diagnostic in differentiating the BCT positive patients than BCT negative patients.