Historical Review of Traumatic Brain Injury Caused by Fishing Speargun & a New Suicide Case

• Published in: World neurosurgery 2024-11
• Main Authors: Solou, Mary, Siasos, Nikolaos, Lakoumentas, John, Bakopoulos, Konstantinos A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Craniofacial injury; Fishing speargun; Neurosurgery; Skull injury; Suicide; TBI; Traumatic brain injury
• ISSN: 1878-8750; 1878-8769; 1878-8769
• DOI: 10.1016/j.wneu.2024.10.094

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a severe neurosurgical emergency and a significant public health concern. Fishing-speargun TBIs are included in nonmissile injuries and have been implicated in only few cases of TBI in the past 68 years, mainly of accidental etiology. To introduce a novel case report of a TBI in a 38-year-old man who shot himself with a speargun in a suicide attempt and to present a thorough review of related case reports along with the management strategies, prognosis, and outcomes. We conducted a literature review of case reports in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, including incidents of TBI by speargun published in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science until January 2024. A total of 22 publications, reporting 26 cases of speargun-related TBIs, formulated the 27 investigated cases including the current patient which were used in this descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. Predominantly affecting males (88.89%) with a median age of 29 years, these injuries were primarily due to accidents (65.38%), with a noticeable shift toward suicide. Outcome variability ranged from intact recovery (48.15%) in majority of cases to a range of unfavorable outcomes. Significant factors impacting outcomes included initial Glasgow Coma Scale score