Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage: Profile of Patients Treated in the Stroke Unit of a Third Level Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Constituting around 15% of all strokes, intracerebral hemorrhage is the most devastating cerebrovascular event. Despite its impact, only a few regional studies analyze its characteristics separately. Aim: Describe the characteristics of spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage patients, treated at the Stroke Unit of a tertiary hospital of Costa Rica´s National Social Security Health System (CCSS). Patients and Methods: By reviewing medical charts, a retrospective study and analysis of socio-demographic and clinical characteristics in well defined, arterial, spontaneous, and non-traumatic intracerebral hemorrhage patients, was performed. Results: Clinical records of 74 patients were studied. Age average was 64.4 ± 12.6 years, events were identified predominantly in male patients and all patients presented at least one risk factor; being arterial hypertension the most prevalent. Etiology in 90.5% of the cases corresponds to small vessel disease, 81.0% of the events are consistent with deep intracerebral hemorrhage and 3 months modified Rankin Scale median was 3. The average hospital stay at the unit was one week, around one third of patients presented complications and 90-day mortality was 16.2%. Conclusions: Despite the differences found attributable mainly to ethnic aspects and the nature of the analyzed population, the profile of these patients resembles what has been described elsewhere