Microdialysis enables the chemistry of the extracellular interstitial space to be monitored. Use of this technique in patients with acute brain injury has increased our understanding of the pathophysiology of several acute neurological disorders. In 2004, a consensus document on the clinical application of cerebral microdialysis was published. Since then, there have been significant advances in the clinical use of microdialysis in neurocritical care. The objective of this review is to report on the International Microdialysis Forum held in Cambridge, UK, in April 2014 and to produce a revised and updated consensus statement about its clinical use including technique, data interpretation, relationship with outcome, role in guiding therapy in neurocritical care and research applications.

Purpose: Diffuse gliomas are the most common primary tumor of the brain and include different subtypes with diverse prognosis. The genomic characterization of diffuse gliomas facilitates their molecular diagnosis. The anatomical localization of diffuse gliomas complicates access to tumor specimens for diagnosis, in some cases incurring high-risk surgical procedures and stereotactic biopsies. Recently, cell-free circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has been identified in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with brain malignancies. Experimental Design: We performed an analysis of IDH1, IDH2, TP53, TERT, ATRX, H3F3A, and HIST1H3B gene mutations in two tumor cohorts from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) including 648 diffuse gliomas. We also performed targeted exome sequencing and droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) analysis of these seven genes in 20 clinical tumor specimens and CSF from glioma patients and performed a histopathologic characterization of the tumors. Results: Analysis of the mutational status of the IDH1, IDH2, TP53, TERT, ATRX, H3F3A, and HIST1H3B genes allowed the classification of 79% of the 648 diffuse gliomas analyzed, into IDH-wild-type glioblastoma, IDH-mutant glioblastoma/diffuse astrocytoma and oligodendroglioma, each subtype exhibiting diverse median overall survival (1.1, 6.7, and 11.2 years, respectively). We developed a sequencing platform to simultaneously and rapidly genotype these seven genes in CSF ctDNA allowing the subclassification of diffuse gliomas. Conclusions: The genomic analysis of IDH1, IDH2, TP53, ATRX, TERT, H3F3A, and HIST1H3B gene mutations in CSF ctDNA facilitates the diagnosis of diffuse gliomas in a timely manner to support the surgical and clinical management of these patients. Clin Cancer Res; 24(12); 2812–9. ©2018 AACR.

Object. The aims of this study were to analyze the relevance of risk factors in mild head injury (MHI) by studying the possibility of establishing prediction models based on these factors and to evaluate the reliability of the clinical guidelines proposed for the management of MHI. Methods. A series of 1101 patients with MHI were prospectively enrolled in this study. In all cases clinical data were collected and a computerized tomography (CT) scan was obtained. The relationship between clinical findings and the presence of intracranial lesions was studied to establish prediction models based on logistic regression and recursive partitioning analysis. Recently proposed guidelines and recommendations for the treatment of MHI were selected, calculating their diagnostic efficiency when applying each of them to our series. The incidence of acute intracranial lesions was 7.5% (83 patients). A Glasgow Coma Scale score of 14, loss of consciousness, vomiting, headache, signs of basilar skull fracture, neurological deficit, coagulopathies, hydrocephalus treated with shunt insertion, associated extracranial lesions, and patient age greater than 65 years were identified as independent risk factors. Prediction models built on clinical variables were able to indicate patients with clinically important lesions, but failed to achieve 100% sensitivity in the detection of all patients with CT scans positive for intracranial lesions within reasonable specificity limits. Conclusions. Clinical variables are insufficient to predict all cases of intracranial lesions following MHI, although they can be used to detect patients with relevant injuries. Avoiding systematic CT scan indication implies a rate of misdiagnosis that should be known and assumed when planning treatment in these patients by using guidelines based on clinical parameters.