Frequency/prevalence analysis of risk factors on aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage

Introduction

Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a catastrophic clinical event in which 2/3 of spontaneous SAH are characterized by rupture and bleeding of cerebral aneurysm.

Methods

After institutional approval and informed consent, this prospective observational study took place from April 2008 to November 2009, involved all adult patients with spontaneous SAH admitted to the ICU, evaluating the frequency/prevalence of some factors such as: gender, age, skin color, arterial hypertension (AH), smoking habit, diabetes mellitus (DM), alcoholism, dyslipidemia, sedentary and use of oral contraceptive method.

Results

We observed a total of 128 patients, average age of 55.3 years, and obtained as the main results of frequency with respective confidence intervals (CI): gender, female 73.4% (n = 94) (CI 64.9 to 80.9), male 26.6% (n = 34) (CI 19.1 to 35.1); skin color, white 46.2% (n = 54) (CI 36.9 to 55.6), black 24.8% (n = 29) (CI 17.3 to 33.6), brown 29.1% (n = 34) (CI 21.0 to 38.2); AH, yes 72.7% (n = 93) (CI 64.1 to 80.5), no 27.3% (n = 35) (CI 19.8 to 35.9); smoking habit, yes 44.5% (n = 57) (CI 35.7 to 53.6), no 55.5% (n = 71) (CI 46.4 to 64.3); diabetes mellitus, yes 14.8% (n = 19) (CI 9.2 to 22.2), no 85.2% (n = 109) (CI 77.8 to 90.8); alcoholism, yes 12.6% (n = 16) (CI 7.4 to 19.7), no 87.4% (n = 112) (CI 87.4 to 92.6); dyslipidemia, yes 10.9% (n = 14) (CI 6.1 to 17.7), no 89.1% (n = 114) (CI 82.3 to 93.9); sedentary, yes 25.8% (n = 33) (CI 18.5 to 34.3), no 74.2% (n = 95) (CI 65.6 to 81.5); obesity, yes 11.7% (n = 15) (CI 6.7 to 18.6), no 88.3% (n = 113) (CI 81.4 to 93.3); oral contraceptive method (analysis obtained only for female gender population), yes 5.3% (n = 5) (CI 1.7 to 12.0), no 94.7% (n = 89) (CI 88.0 to 98.3). See Figure 1.

Figure 1

Conclusions

We can show that among all RF, female gender, AH and smoking habit had greatest prevalence index; the factor skin color had a wide distribution from its variants; other RF as DM, alcoholism, dyslipidemia, sedentary, and use of oral contraceptives had not obtained significant prevalence on patients with aneurysmal SAH.