The Resus Room Anti coagulated head injuries and delayed bleeds....
In 2014 NICE updated their guidelines on Head Injury: assessment and early management. This included specific guidance for those patients on warfarin
Guidance regarding the ongoing observation of these patients is not contained within the guideline but as with much of Emergency Medicine variation between departments and regions vary in the threshold to admit patients with a normal CT head due to concerns of these patients developing a delayed bleed.
A recent systematic review and meta analysis on the topic has just been published and we thought it would be worth a look.
The paper gives an interesting take on the risk we are dealing with following a normal scan in presentation to the ED and whilst the papers contained may not be the strongest level of evidence the meta-analysis is probably the best we have to go on at present.
Enjoy and we'd love to hear any of your thoughts!