Prevention of intracerebral hemorrhage recurrence

Tobacco Use: A Major Risk Factor of Intracerebral Hemorrhage

Spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH) is one of the deadliest subtypes of stroke, and no treatment is currently available. One of the major risk factors is tobacco use. In this article, we review literature on how tobacco use affects the risk of sICH and also summarize the known effects of tobacco use on outcomes following sICH. Several studies demonstrate that the risk of sICH is higher in current cigarette smokers compared to non-smokers. The literature also establishes that cigarette smoking not only increases the risk of sICH but also increases hematoma growth, results in worse outcomes, and increases the risk of death from sICH. This review also discusses potential mechanisms activated by tobacco use which result in an increase in risk and severity of sICH. Exploring the underlying mechanisms may help alleviate the risk of sICH in tobacco users as well as may help better manage tobacco user sICH patients.

Cardiovascular risk factors for acute stroke: Risk profiles in the different subtypes of ischemic stroke

Timely diagnosis and control of cardiovascular risk factors is a priority objective for adequate primary and secondary prevention of acute stroke. Hypertension, atrial fibrillation and diabetes mellitus are the most common risk factors for acute cerebrovascular events, although novel risk factors, such as sleep-disordered breathing, inflammatory markers or carotid intima-media thickness have been identified. However, the cardiovascular risk factors profile differs according to the different subtypes of ischemic stroke. Atrial fibrillation and ischemic heart disease are more frequent in patients with cardioembolic infarction, hypertension and diabetes in patients with lacunar stroke, and vascular peripheral disease, hypertension, diabetes, previous transient ischemic attack and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in patients with atherothrombotic infarction. This review aims to present updated data on risk factors for acute ischemic stroke as well as to describe the usefulness of new and emerging vascular risk factors in stroke patients.

[Relapsing non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage: study of 28 patients]

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

To characterize the clinical factors and prognosis and identify determinants of hemorrhage recurrence (HCR) in patients with acute non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage.

PATIENTS AND METHOD

Stroke patterns were studied in 28 consecutive recurrent non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage patients admitted to the Department of Neurology of the Sagrat Cor Hospital of Barcelona for a 19 year period. Demographic, risk factors, clinical, neuroimaging and outcome variables were analyzed and compared with patients with first-ever non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage (n=380) to identify predictors of hemorrhage recurrence. Significant variables were entered into a multivariate logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

HCR accounted for 6.8% of all patients with acute consecutive non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhages. The HCR were mostly lobar (67.9%). Other topographies include: thalamus (10.7%), capsule-ganglionar (7.1%), intraventricular (3.6%) and multiple topographies (10.7%). Although the HCR have poor prognosis, it is not worse compared to the first-ever intracerebral hemorrhages, both at the high hospital mortality (17.9 vs. 28.2%) as the low frequency of absence of limitation at discharge (3.6 vs. 6.1%). The clinical profile significantly associated with HCR was: valvular heart disease (odds ratio [OR] 5.32; 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.45-19.47), lobar topography (OR 3.53, 95% IC 1.53-8.13), and the presence of nausea and vomiting (OR 2.43, 95% IC 1.06-5.52).

CONCLUSIONS

HCR constitute less than one tenth of non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhages and are most commonly located in the brain lobes. Although the prognosis is serious, this is no worse during the acute phase, than of the first-ever non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhages. Clinical profiles were different in recurrent non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage patients when compared to first-ever non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage patients.