Assessment of Serum Level of Copper, Magnesium, Zinc and Chromium and Its Association with Severity of Head Injury in Trauma Patients

Introduction: Head injury is a recognized as a major public health problem that is a frequent cause of death and disability in young people and makes considerable demands on health services. Alteration of the trace elements such as Zinc and copper has great importance in head injury patients. Objective: To Study the serum level of Copper, Magnesium, Zinc and Chromium in trauma patients and its association between these trace elements and severity of head injury in terms of GCS. Methods: Special designed performa was used to collect data of Trauma patients. The data were expressed in percentage. Results: The Total of 34 head injury patients were enrolled in the study. Majority of patients (41.2%) in present Study were aged between 21-30 years. Majority of patients (67.6%) were males. Majority of patients were skilled/unskilled labour (41.2%) followed by 29.4% were in service/shopkeeper, 26.6% students and 8.8% were housewives.Majority of Patients were from rural (76.5%) areas followed by 23.5% were from rural areas. Road traffic accident was the most common mode of injury. There were 50% patents who reported between 5-6 hrs followed by 23.5% reported between 7 -8 hrs. None of the patients enrolled in the study reported after 8 hrs of injury. 8.8% patients had the assault as the mode of injury.Mean copper levels were 0.029 mg/dlamong patients with severe category of head injury while mean copper level among patients with moderate GCS score were 0.061mg/dl, thus showing difference between two to be statistical significant (P<0.001). The other trace elements like Zinc, Magnesium and Chromium does not showed statically significant among different severity categories of trauma, however mean Cu and Zn levels were found to be significantly higher among those with moderate group as compared to severe group. Conclusion: Mean copper and magnesium levels among patients of head injury at the time of enrolment were lower than the normal range for healthy subjects. Mean copper and zinc levels were found to be significantly higher among patients with moderate GCS score as compared to those with severe GCS scores. Kewwords: Head injury, Trauma Patients, GCS Score, Copper, zinc, Magnesium, Chromium