Avilanian medicine to reduce violent deaths – Periódico Invasor

The Cuban Academy of Sciences recognized the investigative work of the Avilanian doctor Ángel Lacerda Gallardo in the treatment of severe head trauma. We tell you the contributions of the study

It is the work of a lifetime and not a specific scientific result that the Cuban Academy of Sciences recently awarded the prestigious Morón neurosurgeon Ángel Jesús Lacerda Gallardo.

Their study, carried out for more than fifteen years, responds to a global health problem: the high mortality from severe head trauma and “the absence of scientific evidence on the benefit of measures to control intracranial hypertension that is associated in more 65 percent of these cases.

Since 2003, in the Neurosurgery Service At the Roberto Rodríguez General Teaching Provincial Hospital in Morón, the use of decompressive craniectomy is monitored for early control of intracranial pressure.

To be understood, it is a surgical procedure in which part of the skull is removed to allow a swelling of the brain room to expand. Between 2003 and 2006, 23 patients who were part of the study underwent the usual treatment for severe head trauma, and another 46 with craniectomy, in whom mortality was reduced by up to 14.78 percent, and it was possible to control intracranial pressure in most cases. As of 2020, the study had already proven its worth in 230 patients.

The contributions of the research go beyond the lives saved in this group. The therapeutic window (range in which a drug or procedure can be applied without harming the patient) was reduced to 12 hours and up to 3 (while the treatment guidelines recommended 48), which makes it possible to act more quickly in favor of human life .

In addition, the benefit of expanding the diameter of the flap bone (fragment of the skull that is removed) to more than 15 centimeters was demonstrated, and “an immense strength was the continuous monitoring of intracranial pressure and cerebral percussion pressure, practice in which our hospital is the national leader, together with the Manuel Ascunce hospital, in Camagüey”.

Results? “Mortality was 28 percent and complications were few.” “Adequate cerebral oxygenation was maintained, blocking the natural evolution towards secondary damage. That was essential.”

Doing science and applying it to medical practice, Dr. Lacerda is already seasoned. This specific research generated his own doctoral thesis (in 2009), more than 30 participations in scientific events and 17 publications in high-impact journals around the world.

The results have been introduced in hospitals in Camagüey, Matanzas, Santiago de Cuba and Las Tunas, guarantees that also earned him the National Award for the result of scientific research in 2022, awarded by the Cuban Academy of Sciences, of which Dr. is an honorary member.

According to Cuban Journal of Intensive and Emergency Medicineeach year approximately 1.5 million people die from head injuries, which, in turn, are the result of traffic accidents, falls from heights or “off their feet”, and injuries from firearms and sharp objects.

“It has been called the simple epidemic,” says Dr. Lacerda Gallarado, “because since ancient times, wars and current technological development and the automobile industry with accidents have claimed more human lives than any of the great epidemics known to humanity; So, this constitutes a global health problem”.

A health problem that is put, from Ciego de Ávila, science and heart, because Ángel Jesús Lacerda Gallardo does not know how to work in any other way.