Researchers suggest that microwave helmet can evaluate the onset of traumatic brain injury even before the patient arrives at the hospital.

The research team from Sahlgrenska University Hospital and the Chalmers University of Technology both located in Gothenburg, Sweden evaluate the effectivity of microwave helmet in a small trial. In their findings, microwave technology can detect the rapid progression of intracranial bleeding due to head injuries.

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Microwave helmet is a portable device that uses microwave technology. The device has been used in other medical application like differentiating strokes due to bleeding in the brain and strokes due to blood clots.

Microwave helmet has three parts; the helmet that incorporates the microwave antennae located on the head; the signal generator; and control equipment using a computer to gather the data and process the result with advanced mathematical algorithms.

Traumatic brain injury, on the other hand, is caused by trauma that leads to disruption of normal brain function. The condition varies from mild commonly known as concussion, and severe.

In 2006 and 2010, the TBI death related cases were high among people aged 65 and above in the United States. While the TBI death related cases for young people aged 5 and 24 is caused by vehicle crashes. As per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 138 people die every day because of injuries which include TBI. Also, in the US the major cause of death and disability is TBI.

According to Dr. Johan Ljungqvist, the first author of the study and specialist in neurosurgery at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital, their small trial focused only on one type of head injury which is the traumatic brain injury (TBI).

With the use of microwave helmet, the researchers tested 20 patients with chronic subdural hematoma, 20 healthy volunteers, and 20 patients with traumatic intracranial hematomas; all of them were hospitalized in a Swedish hospital. They also undergo computerized tomography scan (CT scan). The result from microwave helmet and CT scan were compared.

In the gathered results, researchers concluded that the data from microwave technology detected 75 percent specificity and 100 percent sensitivity hematomas. The 25 percent were over-diagnosed by the microwave helmet; false positives. The sensitivity means the test rules out disease and specificity means microwave technology rules in it.

In the future, researchers were planning to detect patients with more acute head injury using microwave helmet not only in Sweden but also in other countries.