There are limited studies on the relationship between the vascular transcranial Doppler (TCD) pulsatility index (PI) and in-hospital mortality in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). To address this issue, we conducted this study to explore whether, in newly diagnosed Chinese TBI patients, the PI is an independent predictor of the in-hospital mortality rate after adjusting for other covariates. This study is a retrospective cohort study. From 24 March 2019 to 24 January 2020, we recruited 144 Chinese patients with newly diagnosed TBI from a Chinese hospital. The independent variable was the PI, and the dependent variable was in-hospital mortality in TBI patients. The relationship between the PI and in-hospital mortality in TBI patients was nonlinear and had an inflection point of 1.11. In the multivariate analysis, after adjusting for potential confounders, the effect sizes and confidence intervals per additional 0.1 units on the left and right sides of the inflection point were 4.09 (1.30-12.83) and 1.42 (0.93-2.17). The relationship between the PI and in-hospital mortality was nonlinear. The PI was positively related with in-hospital mortality when the PI was less than 1.11.
Keywords: in-hospital mortality; pulsatility index (PI); transcranial Doppler (TCD).