ABSTRACT
Increased intracranial pressure (ICP) is a common and serious problem in patients with severe head injury and other diseases of the brain. ICP to some extent was found in 80% of all patients with major head injury. In over half of the patients, ICP was significantly elevated. Increased ICP accounts for 50% of all head injury deaths. While the majority of cases of increased ICP are due to head injury, elevated ICP is also seen as a secondary effect of a variety of other conditions such as brain tumors, Reye’s syndrome, and intracerebral hemorrhage. Several infusion regimens for chronic intravenous thiopental administration have been described. To evaluate the different dosing regimens, a computer simulation was carried out to compare the published dosing schemes with our scheme using pharmacokinetic kinetic parameters of our population of traumatic patients. The computer simulations have shown that a steady-state situation can be rapidly achieved when large loading doses are given.
