Favourable long-term recovery after decompressive craniectomy: the Northern Finland experience with a predominantly adolescent patient cohort

PURPOSE: Decompressive craniectomy (DC) is an effective treatment of intracranial hypertension. Correspondingly, the procedure is increasingly utilised worldwide. The number of patients rendered vegetative following surgery has been a concern—a matter especially important in children, due to long anticipated lifetime. Here, we report the long-term outcomes of all paediatric DC patients from an 11-year period in a tertiary-level centre that geographically serves half of Finland. METHODS: We identified all patients younger than 18 years who underwent DC in the Oulu University Hospital between the years 2009 and 2019. Outcomes and clinicoradiological variables were extracted from the patient records. RESULTS: Mean yearly prevalence of brain injury requiring DC was 1.34/100 000 children—twenty-four patients underwent DC during the study period and 21 (88%) survived. The median age of the patients was 16.0 years, and the median preoperative GCS was 5.0 (IQR 5.0). Fifteen patients (63%) had made a good recovery (Extended Glasgow Outcome Scale ≥ 7). Of the surviving patients, two (9.5%) had not returned to school. After traumatic brain injury (n = 20), the Rotterdam CT score (mean 3.0, range 1 to 5) was not associated with mortality, poor recovery or inability to continue school (p = 0.13, p = 0.41, p = 0.43, respectively). Absent basal cisterns were associated with mortality (p = 0.005), but not with poor recovery if the patient survived DC (p = 0.81). Hydrocephalus was associated with poor recovery and inability to continue school (p = 0.01 and p = 0.03, respectively). CONCLUSION: Most of our patients made a favourable recovery and were able to continue school. No late mortality was observed. Thus, even in clinically and radiologically severely brain-injured children, decompressive craniectomy appears to yield favourable outcomes. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00381-022-05568-7.