Impact of obesity and diabetes on postoperative outcomes following surgical treatment of nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage: Analysis of the ACS-NSQIP Database

Current Smoking Status Is Not a Risk Factor for Perioperative Outcomes in Patients with Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage Who Underwent Craniotomy Repair

BACKGROUND

Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage is a rupture leading to blood accumulating in the subarachnoid region. Smoking status is often a risk factor for postoperative complications for vascular procedures. This study aims to retrospectively examine the effect of being a current tobacco smoker on postoperative outcomes in patients with nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage.

METHODS

Patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage who underwent craniotomy were identified in the American College of Surgeons-National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. The 30-day perioperative outcomes of current smokers were compared with those of control individuals, who were patients who had not smoked tobacco in the past year. Postoperative outcomes included death, cardiac complications, stroke, operation time >4 hours, bleeding, and other events. In addition, this study examined the same surgical outcomes in patients older than 65 years.

RESULTS

We found no significant difference between these 2 groups across all adverse outcomes analyzed. In patients aged >65 years, we again found no significant differences between these 2 groups across all adverse outcomes analyzed.

CONCLUSIONS

This study shows that although current tobacco smoker status is commonly a risk factor for vascular diseases and postoperative complications, it is not a risk factor for the postoperative variables that we analyzed during craniotomy for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Additional research should be conducted to determine if different procedures to treat aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage may have different outcomes among smokers.

Idiopathic De Novo Arteriovenous Malformation: A Rare Acquired Intracranial Lesion

The de novo development of cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) in adults is an exceedingly rare event that has prompted the theory that a "second hit" is required to induce AVM formation. The authors document development of an occipital AVM in an adult a decade and a half after a brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) disclosed no abnormality. A 31-year-old male with a family history of AVMs and a 14-year history of migraines with visual auras and seizures presented to our service. Because of the onset of a first seizure and migraine headaches at age 17, the patient underwent high-resolution MRI that showed no intracranial lesion. After 14 years of progressively worsening symptoms, he underwent a repeat MRI that demonstrated a new de novo Spetzler-Martin grade 3 left occipital AVM. The patient received anticonvulsants and underwent Gamma Knife radiosurgery for his AVM. This case suggests that patients with seizures or persistent migraine headaches should have periodic repeat neuroimaging to exclude the development of a vascular cause despite an initial negative MRI.

The impact of previous health on the mortality after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: analysis of a prospective Swedish multicenter study

PURPOSE

There is an an increasing awareness of the importance of health and lifestyle for stroke diseases like spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). However, the importance of pre-existing medical conditions for clinical course and mortality after SAH has not been studied. The aim of the present study was to identify pre-existing conditions contributing to mortality after SAH.

METHODS

Data were extracted from a Swedish national prospective study on patients with SAH. Variables were defined for age, sex, body mass index (BMI), clinical condition at admission, and for 10 pre-existing medical conditions. Models predicting mortality in three time intervals with all possible subsets of these variables were generated, compared and selected using Akaike's information criterion.

RESULTS

1155 patients with ruptured aneurysms were included. The mortality within 1 week was 7.6%, 1 month 14.3%, and 1 year 18.7%. The most common pre-existing medical conditions were smoking (57.6%) and hypertension (38.7%). The model's best predicting mortality within 1 week and from 1 week to 1 month included only the level of consciousness at admission and age, and these two variables were present in all the models among the top 200 in Akaike score for each time period. The most predictive model for mortality between 1 month and 1 year added previous stroke, diabetes, psychiatric disease, and BMI as predictors.

CONCLUSION

Mortality within the first month was best predicted simply by initial level of consciousness and age, while mortality within from 1 month to 1 year was significantly influenced by pre-existing medical conditions.