Prevention of complications related to traumatic brain injury in children and adolescents with creatine administration: an open label randomized pilot study

Sakellaris G

Published in Journal of Trauma

Methodology

Open-label randomised pilot study; participants aged 1-18 with TBI assigned to oral creatine 0.4 g/kg/day for 6 months versus standard care; outcomes assessed at 3 and 6 months.

Key Findings

In 39 children and adolescents with traumatic brain injury, oral creatine 0.4 g/kg daily for 6 months reduced duration of post-traumatic amnesia, length of ICU stay and days of intubation, and improved self-care, communication, personality/behaviour, cognition and headache/dizziness/fatigue at follow-up.

Conclusions

Creatine administration may be beneficial to patients with traumatic brain injury.

Limitations

Small, open-label (unblinded) pilot with no placebo control; single centre; heterogeneous injury severity; subjective outcome scales prone to detection bias; results never replicated in a blinded trial.