[Traumatic hematoma in the basal ganglia (caudate) with favorable prognosis: report of two cases].

Two cases of traumatic basal ganglial hematoma with fairly good prognosis were reported. Several cases with similarly favorable prognosis could be also found in the recent literature. In these cases, post-traumatic disturbance in consciousness was mostly slight or moderate and the patients were rarely comatose. The inquiries in these cases were commonly associated with superficial injuries such as skull fracture, epi-or sub-dural hematoma, brain contusion, or another traumatic ICH. The hematomas in the basal ganglia usually showed a mass effect causing focal neurological signs such as hemiparesis. Neurological improvement was achieved in the operated cases, and final outcome was mostly fair with some fully recovered cases. These clinical features are quite different from those of most cases of traumatic basal ganglial hematoma reported so far, which closely resemble diffuse axonal injury and whose prognoses are extremely poor. There may be two different categories in the traumatic basal ganglial hematomas, those with fair outcomes, and those with poor outcomes.