Symptomatic Intracerebral Hemorrhage after Intravenous Thrombolysis: Predictive Factors and Validation of Prediction Models.
OBJECTIVE
Thrombolytic therapy with intravenous alteplase (IV-rtPA) has a known risk of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH). We aim to identify factors with a significant association with the development of sICH post-IV-rtPA. We also aim to perform an external validation of sICH predicting scores in our patient population.


MATERIAL AND METHODS
We performed a retrospective chart review of patients who received IV-rtPA at our tertiary care hospital. We excluded patients who underwent mechanical thrombectomy. We analyzed various factors recorded at presentation such as presenting mean arterial pressure (MAP), blood glucose, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, verify Aspirin, verify Plavix, age, sex, platelet count, international normalized ratio, prothrombin time, partial thromboplastin time, hemoglobin A1c, low-density lipoprotein, onset to treatment time, weight, sex, and early infarct signs on computed tomography (CT) head and compared them between sICH and non-sICH groups. For validation of sICH scores, we used documented variables to calculate the following scores for each patient: stroke prognostication using age and NIH stroke scale-100 (SPAN-100), DRAGON, CUCCHIARA, hemorrhage after thrombolysis (HAT), SEDAN, totaled health risks in vascular events, and safe implementation of thrombolysis in stroke-symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage.


RESULTS
sICH rate in our cohort of 89 patients was 5.62% according to the European-Australasian Cooperative Acute Stroke Study-II (ECASS-II) criteria and 7.86% according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) criteria. In the multivariate regression analysis, MAP (95% CI, .001-.01; P .002), blood glucose greater than or equal to 185 mg/dL (95% CI, .12-.45; P .001) and presence of early infarct signs (95% CI, .06-.25; P .002) had a significant association with the development of sICH with the ECASS-II definition of sICH post-IV-rtPA, whereas, only MAP (95% CI, 1.01-1.18; P .025) and verify Aspirin less than 500 (95% CI, .01-.80; P .032) had a significant association with the development of sICH with the NINDS definition of sICH post-IV-rtPA. Our study found that HAT (95% CI, .58-.96; P .044) and DRAGON (95% CI, .61-.96; P .012) scores had the highest area under the curve (AUC) with respect to ECASS-II and NINDS criteria of sICH, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
We found that presenting MAP, presence of early infarct signs on CT Head and blood glucose greater than or equal to 185 mg/dL upon a patient's presentation have a significant association with sICH post-IV-rtPA when the ECASS-II definition was used, while presenting MAP and verify Aspirin less than 500 upon a patient's presentation have a significant association with sICH post-IV-rtPA when the NINDS definition was used. Our study found that HAT and DRAGON scores had the highest AUC, and they were the most valid in predicting the development of sICH in our independent cohort. Patients with these risk factors should receive more intensive neurological monitoring.
['Nisar|Taha|T|', 'Hanumanthu|Rajanigandhi|R|', 'Khandelwal|Priyank|P|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D000369:Aged, 80 and over D002543:Cerebral Hemorrhage D003661:Decision Support Techniques D005260:Female D005343:Fibrinolytic Agents D006304:Health Status D006801:Humans D007262:Infusions, Intravenous D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D011237:Predictive Value of Tests D015203:Reproducibility of Results D012189:Retrospective Studies D018570:Risk Assessment D012307:Risk Factors D020521:Stroke D015912:Thrombolytic Therapy D010959:Tissue Plasminogen Activator D016896:Treatment Outcome D055815:Young Adult
thrombolysis symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage (sICH) stroke Acute stroke outcome ischemic stroke stroke emergency cerebrovascular care tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA)