Vomiting as a predictor of fracture skull in head injury patients

Background: fracture skull due to head injury along with its associated sequelae is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity of present industrial era. head injury is accompanied by a number of symptoms and posttraumatic vomiting is one of them and it can prognosticate serious brain tissue damage aim: to find out any relationship between fracture skull and post traumatic vomiting methods: the study population included 98 patients of different age groups and both sexes who were brought to the department of neurosurgery of lahore general hospital lahore for treatment after sustaining injury to head area. characteristics included were age,sex,cause of head injury,incidence of skull fracture and the presence of post traumatic vomiting. results: among these 98 patients 56(58.16%) were male and 41(41.83%) were female and age of patients ranged from 2 to 80 years. on history,53(54.08%) patients presented with post traumatic vomiting. x-ray or ct scan skull of all of these patients was done to detect fracture skull which was reported in 66(67.34%) patients. amongst them 37(56.06%) were male and 29(43.93%) were female. 51 patients were positive both for vomiting and fracture skull. fall from height and road traffic accidents were frequent causes of head injury leading to fracture skull. conclusion: these results firmly support the assumption that post traumatic vomiting is a strong predictor of fracture skull.