Elective ICP monitoring: how long is long enough?

Background Intracranial pressure monitoring is commonly undertaken to assess and manage acute patients following head injury. However, ICP monitoring can also be a useful diagnostic tool in the management of CSF dynamics in elective patients. To date, there is little published research to suggest how long these elective patients require ICP monitoring in order to gain an accurate picture of a patient’s ICP dynamics. At the author’s institution, a minimum of 48-h data collection is currently undertaken in patients with a suspected ICP abnormality.