One study found that 35% of people with multiple significant injuries including pulmonary contusion die. In another study, 11% of people with pulmonary contusion alone died, while the number rose to 22% in those with additional injuries. Pulmonary contusion is thought to be the direct cause of death in a quarter to a half of people with multiple injuries (polytrauma) who die. An accompanying flail chest increases the morbidity and mortality to more than twice that of pulmonary contusion alone.Pulmonary contusion is the most common cause of death among vehicle occupants involved in accidents, and it is thought to contribute significantly in about a quarter of deaths resulting from vehicle collisions. As vehicle use has increased, so has the number of auto accidents, and with it the number of chest injuries. However an increase in the number of airbags installed in modern cars may be decreasing the incidence of pulmonary contusion. Use of child restraint systems has brought the approximate incidence of pulmonary contusion in children in vehicle accidents from 22% to 10%.Differences in the bodies of children and adults lead to different manifestations of pulmonary contusion and associated injuries; for example, children have less body mass, so the same force is more likely to lead to trauma in multiple body systems. Since their chest walls are more flexible, children are more vulnerable to pulmonary contusion than adults are, and thus suffer from the injury more commonly. Pulmonary contusion has been found in 53% of children with chest injuries requiring hospitalization.
Brain ischemia can be further subdivided, by cause, into thrombotic, embolic, and hypoperfusion. Thrombotic and embolic are generally focal or multifocal in nature while hypoperfusion affects the brain globally. Focal brain ischemia
Focal brain ischemia occurs when a blood clot has occluded a cerebral vessel. Focal brain ischemia reduces blood flow to a specific brain region, increasing the risk of cell death to that particular area. It can be either caused by thrombosis or embolism. Global brain ischemia
Global brain ischemia occurs when blood flow to the brain is halted or drastically reduced. This is commonly caused by cardiac arrest. If sufficient circulation is restored within a short period of time, symptoms may be transient. However, if a significant amount of time passes before restoration, brain damage may be permanent. While reperfusion may be essential to protecting as much brain tissue as possible, it may also lead to reperfusion injury. Reperfusion injury is classified as the damage that ensues after restoration of blood supply to ischemic tissue.Due to different susceptibility to ischemia of various brain regions, a global brain ischemia may cause focal brain infarction. The cerebral cortex and striatum are more susceptible than the thalamus, and the thalamus in turn is more sensitive than the brainstem. Partial cerebral cortex infarction from global brain ischemia typically manifests as watershed stroke. Biomarker
Use of biomarker is one method that has been evaluated to predict the risk of stroke, diagnose stroke and its causes, predict stroke severity and outcome, and guide prevention therapy.