2004 Volume 32 Issue 6 Pages 398-402
We investigated the clinical characteristics of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) under anticoagulant and/or antiplatelet therapy in 371 cases with spontaneous ICH treated during 2 years between November 2001 and October 2003. Forty-eight out of these 361 cases had received either anticoagulant and/or antiplatelet therapy before and at the onset of ICH. We compared the clinical characteristics of these 48 patients with those who had not received anticoagulant or antiplatelet treatment.
Patients were classified into 4 groups: those who had received anticoagulant only (Group A, n=11), both anticoagulant and antiplatelet (Group B, n=11), antiplatelet only (Group C, n=26), and those who had not received anticoagulant or antiplatelet treatment (control group, n=313). There was no significant difference between the control and group A, B, or C in age, sex, history of hypertension, blood pressure at the time of admission, hematoma location, or initial hematoma size. The rebleeding rate was higher in groups with anticoagulant treatment (A, B) than control. Rankin Scale at the time of discharge was significantly worse in groups with anticoagulant treatment (A, B) than control. However, the outcome did not significantly differ between group C (antiplatelet only) and control.
Anticoagulant therapy may be a risk factor of rebleeding, clinical deterioration, and poor outcome. In contrast, antiplatelet therapy may not be a risk factor of rebleeding, clinical deterioration or poor outcome.
