Minor head trauma in the emergency room

Key words: Minor head trauma, Children, Tomography, Intracranial lesion, Review

Head trauma is one of the most common causes of access to paediatric emergency services and it is the leading cause of death and disability after the first year of life. However, the approach to minor head injury (MHI), which by definition should be at low complication risk, has a greater diversity in its management and it often leads to inappropriate use of resources and diagnostic tools. The aim of this paper is to give some indications, according to the available literature, to detect the small number of children with MHI that need particular attention and to avoid unnecessary investigations and prolonged hospitalizations to all others.