J Korean Soc Emerg Med.  1998 Mar;9(1):177-183.

Three Cases Of Symptomatic Hyponatremia After Mild Head Trauma

• Pyo CH
• Lee K
• Park CW
• Ahn SK
• Lim YS
• Min SS

Abstract

Many patients whose chief complaint is headache caused by accident such as traffic accident, falling, or assaults visit to emergency center. Majority of these patients has mild or moderate symptoms, and there is no need to treat surgically. However, the fact that head injury can cause SIADH(syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone) is likely to be overseen. Acute hyponatremia might have been associated with death or permanent brain damage. Hyponatremia is best handled by early recognition and correction of a downward trend in the serum sodium. Unfortunately, this is often difficult in the head-injured patient, where hyponatremia may occur fairly rapidly and is confused by symptoms of head injury. when moderate to severe hyponatremia occurs, it is important to determine its etiology and expeditiously initiate corrective action. There has not been any reported case of the occurrence of symptomatic SIADH after mild head injury in Korea yet. The authors report the experience of three cases of symptomatic SIADH after mild head injury with review of the literatures.

MeSH Terms

Accidents, Traffic
Brain
Craniocerebral Trauma*
Emergencies
Head*
Headache
Humans
Hyponatremia*
Inappropriate ADH Syndrome
Korea
Sodium
Sodium