Biomedical Research

The study sought to confirm, the presence of harmful biomarker and free radical of trau-matic brain edema, malondialdehyde (MDA) in high levels within the brain tissue and plas-ma of brain injured as compared to normal brain tissue, and also its detrimental effect on brain, clinically. At the same time the study analyses the free radical – scavenging role of a pharmacological antioxidant agent called pentoxifylline, in terms of lowering the plasma levels of MDA and thereby clinical improvement. Biochemical estimation of plasma levels of malondialdehyde at regular intervals in all patients with traumatic brain edema showed de-creasing trend in plasma levels of patients (cases) receiving therapeutic doses of pharmacol-ogical agent, pentoxifylline. While as no change in high plasma levels of MDA was observed in traumatic brain edema patients (controls) on routine treatment (antiedema measures). This is an analysis of case – control study of 108 patients of traumatic brain edema, evalu-ated clinically by Glasgow coma scale (GCS) score, radiologically by serial computerized tomographic (CT) scans of the brain and biochemically by measuring plasma MDA levels in both, the cases (receiving pentoxifylline) and the controls (routine treatment).The youngest patient was 21 years of age, the oldest 66 years and most patients were in the age group of 21 to 45.There were only 12 female patients, six from each group. High morbidity was observed in both the groups, cases (pentoxifylline-group) and controls (control-group) but a mortality of 52.5% was observed in control-group of patients as compared to zero mortality in pen-toxifylline - group. This study confirms the beneficial role of pentoxifylline in patients of traumatic brain edema by antagonizing a product of lipid peroxidation, malondialdehyde.

Author(s): Abdul Rashid Bhat, M. Afzal. Wani, A. Kirmani, T. Raina, Shafiq Alam, A. Ramzan
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