Effect of Aqueous Extract of Lettuce on the Outcome of Patients with Brain Injury in the Intensive Care Unit: A Pilot Study

Objective: Due to the increasing prevalence of traumatic brain injury, especially in younger people which is one of the leading causes of death, factors affecting the outcome of patients admitted to the intensive care unit are varied, thus this study aimed to investigate the lettuce extract on inflammation and other factors which affect the course of the disease in patients who admitted to the ICU. Methods: This study was a randomized clinical trial. After obtaining written consent from the patient's relatives according to the inclusion criteria for the study, they were divided into two intervention and control groups of 15 patients. In the intervention group, 250 ccs of lettuce water extract were prescribed twice daily for 7 days. In the control group, a placebo was administered.  For all patients, inflammatory factors and variables related to patient outcomes were recorded. The information was analyzed in SPSS 18 software with t-test, Mann-Whitney, repeated measures ANOVA and chi-square. Results: Investigations showed that the studied variables in the two groups were not significantly different at the 5% error level.   Conclusion: In this study, lettuce extract was not statistically effective in the improvement of patients with brain lesions, which can be due to the small sample size, short study time, the severity of the patient's illness, and the influence of confounding factors such as acidosis and the difference in lettuce cultivation methods.