Clinical Profile and Outcomes in Patients with Acute Intracerebral Haemorrhage Presenting to the Emergency Department at a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital, South India

Abstract

BACKGROUND World Health Organisation (WHO) defined stroke as rapidly developing clinical signs of focal disturbance of cerebral function, lasting more than 24 hours or leading to death, with no apparent cause other than vascular origin. Prognostic factors for predicting functional outcome and mortality play a major role in determining the treatment outcome. We intended to study the clinical charecteristics and outcome of patients with intracerebral bleeding coming to emergency room. METHODS Patients more than 18 years of age who were diagnosed to have intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) on CT brain plain scan were included in the study. Age < 18 years, patients not willing to participate in the study were excluded from the study. Type of clinical presentation, imaging findings, ICH score, and Glasgow coma scale (GCS) score, were calculated for each patient at the time of admission. The condition of the patient, whether death / discharge (alive) was documented in all study population at the time of discharge. RESULTS Hypertension was the most common risk factor present in 68 % of study population. Most of the patients were between 41 - 70 years of age with a male preponderance. High ICH score, low GCS score at the time of admission, presence of intraventricular haemorrhage, and midline shift (P - value 0.000) were significantly associated with poor clinical outcome. Mortality was high in patients with infratentorial bleed and volume > 40 c.c. CONCLUSION Males in their sixth decade were the most affected in our study on ICH. Cerebellar and brainstem haemorrhages had higher mortality, though putamen is the commonest site of haemorrhage, low Glasgow Coma Scores and high ICH scores were associated with increased mortality. KEY WORDS Stroke, Haemorrhage, Intracerebral, Prognosis, Bleed