Penetrating head injury
| Perforating head injury | |
|---|---|
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| An 1868 illustration of the injury suffered by Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who had a tamping iron driven through his skull in an 1848 accident. | |
| Classification and external resources | |
| Specialty | emergency medicine |
| ICD-10 | S01.9 |
| eMedicine | med/2888 |
| MeSH | D020197 |
A penetrating head injury, or open head injury, is a head injury in which the dura mater, the outer layer of the meninges, is breached. Penetrating injury can be caused by high-velocity projectiles or objects of lower velocity such as knives, or bone fragments from a skull fracture that are driven into the brain. Head injuries caused by penetrating trauma are serious medical emergencies and may cause permanent disability or death.
A penetrating head injury involves "a wound in which an object breaches the cranium but does not exit it." In contrast, a perforating head injury is a wound in which the object passes through the head and leaves an exit wound.
In penetrating injury from high-velocity missiles, injuries may occur not only from initial laceration and crushing of brain tissue by the projectile, but also from the subsequent cavitation. High-velocity objects create rotations and can create a shock wave that cause stretch injuries, forming a cavity that is three to four times greater in diameter than the missile itself. A pulsating temporary cavity is also formed by a high-speed missile and can have a diameter 30 times greater than that of the missile. Though this cavity is reduced in size once the force ends, the tissue that was compressed during cavitation remains injured. Destroyed brain tissue may either be ejected from entrance or exit wounds, or packed up against the sides of the cavity formed by the missile.
Low-velocity objects usually cause penetrating injuries in the regions of the skull's temporal bones or orbital surfaces, where the bones are thinner and thus more likely to break. Damage from lower-velocity penetrating injuries is restricted to the tract of the stab wound, because the lower-velocity object does not create as much cavitation. However, low-velocity penetrating objects, such as slow bullets, may ricochet inside the skull, continuing to cause damage until they stop moving.
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