RESEARCH ARTICLE
Head injury patterns in helmeted and nonhelmeted cyclists admitted to a London Major Trauma Centre with serious head injury Anna E. Forbes1¤a*, John Schutzer-Weissmann1¤b, David A. Menassa2, Mark H. Wilson3 1 Adult Intensive Care Unit, Department of Critical Care, St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom, 2 Division of Clinical Neurology, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 3 Imperial Neurotrauma Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Trust Biomedical Research Centre, St Mary’s Hospital, London, United Kingdom
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¤a Current address: Barts and the London School of Anaesthesia, Barts Health NHS Trust, Royal London Hospital, London, United Kingdom ¤b Current address: Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, Stanmore, United Kingdom * [email protected]
Abstract Background
OPEN ACCESS Citation: Forbes AE, Schutzer-Weissmann J, Menassa DA, Wilson MH (2017) Head injury patterns in helmeted and non-helmeted cyclists admitted to a London Major Trauma Centre with serious head injury. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0185367. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185367 Editor: Jake Olivier, University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA Received: March 1, 2017 Accepted: September 12, 2017 Published: September 25, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Forbes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its supporting information files. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Cycle use across London and the UK has increased considerably over the last 10 years. With this there has been an increased interest in cycle safety and injury prevention. Head injuries are an important cause of mortality and morbidity in cyclists. This study aimed to ascertain the frequency of different head injury types in cyclists and whether wearing a bicycle helmet affords protection against specific types of head injury.
Methods A retrospective observational study of all cyclists older than 16 years admitted to a London Major Trauma Centre between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2015 was completed. A cohort of patients who had serious head injury was identified (n = 129). Of these, data on helmet use was available for 97. Comparison was made between type of injury frequency in helmeted and non-helmeted cyclists within this group of patients who suffered serious head injury.
Results Helmet use was shown to be protective against intracranial injury in general (OR 0.2, CI 0.07–0.55, p = 0.002). A protective effect against subdural haematoma was demonstrated (OR 0.14, CI 0.03–0.72, p = 0.02). Wearing a helmet was also protective against skull fractures (OR 0.12, CI 0.04–0.39, p
Head injury patterns in helmeted and nonhelmeted cyclists admitted to a London Major Trauma Centre with serious head injury Anna E. Forbes1¤a*, John Schutzer-Weissmann1¤b, David A. Menassa2, Mark H. Wilson3 1 Adult Intensive Care Unit, Department of Critical Care, St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, London, United Kingdom, 2 Division of Clinical Neurology, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 3 Imperial Neurotrauma Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Trust Biomedical Research Centre, St Mary’s Hospital, London, United Kingdom
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¤a Current address: Barts and the London School of Anaesthesia, Barts Health NHS Trust, Royal London Hospital, London, United Kingdom ¤b Current address: Department of Anaesthesia and Pain Management, Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust, Stanmore, United Kingdom * [email protected]
Abstract Background
OPEN ACCESS Citation: Forbes AE, Schutzer-Weissmann J, Menassa DA, Wilson MH (2017) Head injury patterns in helmeted and non-helmeted cyclists admitted to a London Major Trauma Centre with serious head injury. PLoS ONE 12(9): e0185367. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185367 Editor: Jake Olivier, University of New South Wales, AUSTRALIA Received: March 1, 2017 Accepted: September 12, 2017 Published: September 25, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Forbes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are within the paper and its supporting information files. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Cycle use across London and the UK has increased considerably over the last 10 years. With this there has been an increased interest in cycle safety and injury prevention. Head injuries are an important cause of mortality and morbidity in cyclists. This study aimed to ascertain the frequency of different head injury types in cyclists and whether wearing a bicycle helmet affords protection against specific types of head injury.
Methods A retrospective observational study of all cyclists older than 16 years admitted to a London Major Trauma Centre between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2015 was completed. A cohort of patients who had serious head injury was identified (n = 129). Of these, data on helmet use was available for 97. Comparison was made between type of injury frequency in helmeted and non-helmeted cyclists within this group of patients who suffered serious head injury.
Results Helmet use was shown to be protective against intracranial injury in general (OR 0.2, CI 0.07–0.55, p = 0.002). A protective effect against subdural haematoma was demonstrated (OR 0.14, CI 0.03–0.72, p = 0.02). Wearing a helmet was also protective against skull fractures (OR 0.12, CI 0.04–0.39, p
