Behind the knife, the Surgery Podcast, where we take a behind the scenes intimate look at surgery

from leaders in the field. Welcome back to the Big Tea Trauma Series on Behind the Knife. In this series

we cover clinically-oriented material that focuses on how best to care for

dramatically injured and critically ill patients.

My name is Patrick Georgov, Trauma Surgery Fellow at the University of Texas Memorial Herman Red Duke

Trauma Institute in Houston, Texas.

And today I'm joined by Teddy Puzio, also a trauma surgery fellow at the University of Texas in Houston.

And today we're going to cover TBI.

All right, let's get started by talking about TBI epidemiology.

So why is this an important topic? Sure. So, a traumatic brain injury is definitely a big medical and social problem. It's an estimated 10 million cases leading to hospitalization or death each year worldwide.

In the United States, trauma is a leading cause of death

and individuals aged 1 through 45,

and TBI accounts for the majority of these death was over 50,000 deaths per year.

All right, Patrick, so let's start, when we talk about TBI, I start from the very beginning.

So what are the two overall components to a TBI?

Right, so you're talking about secondary, primary,

excuse me, primary and secondary brain injury.

So primary brain injury is the initial insult

that occurs from the impact itself.

And so the only way to prevent this is through different prevention methods

wearing a helmet not getting injured in the first place etc.

Whereas secondary brain injury results from metabolic and physiologic

...