The BrainScope One brain injury assessment device has the potential to reduce unnecessary head CT scans by one-third in a emergency department setting, according to a new study conducted by Washington University Barnes Jewish Medical Center in St. Louis.

“When a healthcare professional integrates BrainScope One into their evaluation of mild head-injured patients, it can aid clinicians in making more objective, confident decisions about the need for a CT scan,” Leslie Prichep, chief scientific officer at BrainScope, told HCB News.

Patients who present at the ED with a suspected head injury traditionally undergo a head CT scan to detect brain tissue damage or intracranial lesions. But the majority of the CT scans do not detect intracranial lesions.
BrainScope One is a handheld device that can obtain data and results at the point of care. It leverages advanced signal processing and machine learning to establish an EEG-based biomarker of the likelihood of brain injury visible on a CT scan or advanced neuroimaging.

The device also evaluates the presence and severity of functional brain injury, performs rapid neurocognitive tests and is equipped with a large battery of digitized concussion assessment tools.

“It is through this novel and unique set of capabilities that it will lead to becoming part of the standard of care,” said Prichep.

For the study, the researchers used data within BrainScope’s national registry. They compared 64 patients who were referred for CT scan following the traditional site referral pathway versus using BrainScope One to determine referral for CT.

The results demonstrated that in a real-world ED setting, BrainScope could have led to a 33 percent reduction in head CT scans in this patient group without incurring any false negative cases. Those initial results matched the results from BrainScope’s FDA validation trial.

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