Pattern of fatal cranio-cerebral injury in road traffic accidents-An autopsy based study

Road traffic accidents are the major cause of death, worldwide. Among the various types of fatalities in road traffic accidents, head or cranio-cerebral injury is on the top, the head being the most vulnerable part of the body. The present study was performed on 100 cases of road traffic accidents in which cranio-cerebral injuries were the only fatal injuries present over body of the victims. In this study, males clearly outnumbered females with male to female ratio as 4.26: 1. The highest incidents were seen in the age group 21–30 years (29%), followed by the age group 31–40 (20%). Most of the victims died within 24 hours of hospitalization i.e. 40%, followed by duration between 24–72 hours (26%). Commonest scalp injury noticed in the present study was contusion, seen in 48% of cases, followed by lacerated wounds in 46% cases. Skull fractures were noticed in 77% of cases in which linear fracture (41%) was the most common type of fracture observed. Among the intracranial haemorrhages, combination of SDH and SAH (53% cases) was the commonest.