Is the mortality rate of cerebral edema high?

Cerebral edema is a relatively common disease in daily life. Many people are relatively familiar with this disease. Cerebral edema is a relatively serious disease and it causes great harm to the patient's body. When you suffer from cerebral edema, your daily diet should focus on light food, try not to eat spicy and irritating food, and eat more fresh vegetables and fruits.

Cerebral edema refers to a pathological phenomenon in which the water content in the brain increases, leading to an increase in brain volume. It is the response of the brain tissue to various pathogenic factors. It can cause intracranial hypertension and damage brain tissue. It is common in clinical practice in neurological diseases such as craniocerebral trauma, intracranial infection (encephalitis, meningitis, etc.), cerebrovascular disease, intracranial space-occupying diseases (such as tumors), epileptic seizures, and systemic diseases such as toxic dysentery and severe pneumonia.

Cerebral edema is a secondary pathological process caused by intracranial diseases and systemic diseases. At the same time, cerebral edema often causes or aggravates increased intracranial pressure, so the clinical manifestations often overlap with the symptoms of the primary lesions and aggravate them.

1. Symptoms of brain damage

Localized cerebral edema often occurs around local brain contusions or space-occupying lesions such as brain tumors and vascular diseases. Common symptoms include worsening of epilepsy and paralysis symptoms, or motor aphasia caused by the expansion of the water quality range and the spread of language and motor centers. After brain injury, if symptoms gradually worsen, cerebral edema should be considered. Diffuse cerebral edema may continue to expand to the whole brain due to uncontrolled localized cerebral edema, or it may be diffuse cerebral edema from the beginning, such as diffuse axonal injury.

2. Symptoms of increased intracranial pressure

Symptoms include headache, increased vomiting, restlessness, drowsiness and even coma. Fundus examination may reveal papilledema. Early compensatory symptoms include changes in vital signs, slowed pulse and breathing, and increased blood pressure. If cerebral edema and high intracranial pressure continue to worsen, it may lead to cerebral edema and brain herniation.

3. Other symptoms

Edema affecting the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, and anterior thalamus can cause mental disorders, and in severe cases, confusion and coma. Increased intracranial pressure can also cause psychiatric symptoms. Sometimes the body temperature rises moderately, and cerebral edema involves the hypothalamus, which can cause symptoms of hypothalamic damage.

complication :

Cerebral edema increases intracranial pressure, and increased intracranial pressure can aggravate cerebral edema. When it develops to a certain extent, it can cause functional and structural damage to brain tissue. If not diagnosed and treated in time, cerebral edema will worsen or develop from localized to diffuse, which will cause serious damage to the brain, form irreversible secondary pathological changes and lead to brain death. This outcome is caused by widespread damage to brain tissue and severe damage to the brainstem secondary to brain herniation.