Early death prediction in children with traumatic brain injury using computed tomography scoring systems

•Retrospective study of predicting the outcome of severe traumatic brain injury of children.•Comparison the ability of Marshall and Rotterdam CT scoring systems to predict the early death in children with traumatic brain injury.•Marshall scoring system performs equally to or significantly better than the Rotterdam scoring system in children.•Basal cistern absence and voluminous mass lesion are most significant indicators of early death among CT findings in children with severe traumatic brain injury.