Management of severe subarachnoid hemorrhage; significance of assessment of both neurological and systemic insults at acute stage.
In order to elucidate mutual interrelationship between neurological and systemic dysfunctions in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) at acute stage, neurological condition, systemic complications and plasma catecholamine (CA) level were studied in 1431 consecutive cases admitted within 72 hours after the onset. Five hundred and twenty-four cases with Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score 8 or less were assigned to the group of severely ill cases (G-ill), 907 cases with GCS score 9 or more to that of the less ill group (G-well). Plasma CA level was extremely high at super-acute stage within an hour after bleeding and lowered fairly quickly within 24 hours to the normal range. Assuming the value obtained from a formula of [blood sugar level (mg/dl)/serum potassium concentration (mEq/L)] as stress index (SI), SI correlates well (r = 0.4-0.6) with serum catecholamine level at acute stage. Thus, sympathetic hyperactivity after SAH can be grossly estimated with SI. SI over 40 means that patients might have considerable neurological insults as well as systemic ones. For patients in G-well, SI over 50 means that there may be risks for systemic complications even in cases with good neurological condition.
Satoh
A
A
Department of Neurosurgery, Saitama Medical School, Saitama, Japan. satohak@saitama-med.ac.jp
Nakamura
H
H
Kobayashi
S
S
Miyata
A
A
Matsutani
M
M
D000208:Acute Disease; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D015331:Cohort Studies; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009422:Nervous System Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy; D015995:Prevalence; D011379:Prognosis; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013345:Subarachnoid Hemorrhage / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000628:therapy