Ocular sonography in patients with raised intracranial pressure: the papilloedema revisited

Invasive devices are recommended for the early detection of raised intracranial pressure (ICP) after severe traumatic brain injury. Owing to contraindication or local issues, however, invasive ICP monitoring is not always possible. Moreover, a significant proportion of moderate traumatic brain injury patients (managed without invasive ICP) will develop raised ICP. Reliable noninvasive ICP techniques are therefore needed. Soldatos and colleagues report the usefulness of ocular sonography in the diagnosis of raised ICP. Focusing on cerebrospinal fluid accumulation around the retrobulbar optic nerve, they show interesting results for the optic nerve sheath diameter in the diagnosis of raised ICP. If confirmed by further studies, and despite important limitations related to sonography, this technique could serve as a screening test in patients at risk for raised ICP, when invasive monitoring is not possible or is not clearly recommended.