Abstract
An acute intracranial haematoma develops in about 45% of severely head injured patients, and dramatically worsens the prognosis, because secondary ischaemic brain damage develops.1 Although the frequency of ischaemic damage is much more difficult to assess in patients who survive an intracranial haematoma, only about one third of patients will recover fully even though surgery is nowadays performed within a few hours of injury, in most cases.