Diffuse Traumatic Axonal Injury: a Longitudinal Study

Patients who immediately lose consciousness after acceleration-deceleration injuries of the head and whose CTs are characterized by the presence of small hyperdense lesions in the corpus callosum and/or paramedian white matter and/or upper brainstem are generally considered as affected by diffuse axonal injury (DAI). The presence of scattered haemorrhages in the white matter of cerebral hemispheres and posterolateral mesencephalon (tissue tear haemorrhages) would be considered by many authors as a hallmark of severe axonal damage, predictive of less than optimal outcomes.