What finding are most consistent with a basilar skull fracture?
Basilar skull fracture. Patients with this type of fracture frequently have bruises around their eyes and a bruise behind their ear. They may also have clear fluid draining from their nose or ears due to a tear in part of the covering of the brain. These patients usually require close observation in the hospital.
What are signs of a basilar skull fracture?
A basilar skull fracture is a break of a bone in the base of the skull. Symptoms may include bruising behind the ears, bruising around the eyes, or blood behind the ear drum. A cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak occurs in about 20% of cases and may result in fluid leaking from the nose or ear.
What physical assessment finding is suggestive of a basilar skull fracture?
These fractures should be considered in all individuals with severe head injuries, especially those with suggestive physical signs, such as bruising around the eyes (Racoon eyes sign), bruising behind the ears (Battle sign), and CSF leaks from the nose or ear canal.
What are the signs and symptoms of a skull fracture?
Symptoms of a skull fracture include:
- tenderness.
- swelling.
- skull deformity.
- bruising around the eyes or behind the ear.
- clear fluid leaking from the nose or ear.
What is a basilar fracture?
Basilar fractures of the skull, also known as base of skull fractures, are a common form of skull fracture, particularly in the setting of severe traumatic head injury, and involve the base of the skull. They may occur in isolation or often in continuity with skull vault (calvarial) fractures or facial fractures.
Which cranial bones are typically fractured with a basilar skull fracture?
Basilar skull fractures most commonly involve the temporal bones but may involve the occipital, sphenoid, ethmoid, and the orbital plate of the frontal bone as well.
Where is a basilar skull fracture?
Basilar skull fractures, usually caused by substantial blunt force trauma, involve at least one of the bones that compose the base of the skull. Basilar skull fractures most commonly involve the temporal bones but may also involve the occipital, sphenoid, ethmoid, and orbital plate of the frontal bone.
What is the basilar part of the skull?
occipital bone
The basilar part of the occipital bone (also basioccipital) extends forward and upward from the foramen magnum, and presents in front an area more or less quadrilateral in outline. In the young skull this area is rough and uneven, and is joined to the body of the sphenoid by a plate of cartilage.
Where is basilar skull?
Where is the “Basal Skull”? The skull bones surround the entire brain, extending underneath to create the base of the skull. The base of the skull is identified by the red line in Diagram 1.
What are the symptoms of a basilar skull fracture?
Several clinical exam findings highly predictive of basilar skull fractures include hemotympanum, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) otorrhea or rhinorrhea, Battle sign (retroauricular or mastoid ecchymosis), and raccoon eyes (periorbital ecchymosis).
When to use CT for basal skull fractures?
CT may reveal suspicious fluid collections near a fracture if bleeding has occurred, or if damage to the dura resulted in a leak of CSF. The base of the skull contains a number of bony channels or foramen that permit the passage of blood vessels and nerves through the bottom of the skull.
What makes a BSF different from other skull fractures?
The most common BSFs involve the petrous portion of the temporal bone, the tympanic membrane, and the external auditory canal 7,8. Clinical exam signs are relatively specific for BSFs in comparison to other skull fractures, due to the proximity of the skull base to cranial nerves, vessels, and dura that lie in its vicinity.
What is the prognosis of a skull base fracture?
The prognosis of skull base fractures depends on: 1 The associated dural tear and CSF leak 2 Instability 3 Associated injuries 4 Initial severity of neurologic and vascular injuries