Use of rosuvastatin for the acute treatment of spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage

Objetive: Spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) represents the more fatal kind of stroke, there is not available a treatment that have demonstrated an improvement of outcome. Statins are cholesterol reducers, of which in the last years an additional neuroprotector effect have been described. We performed a pilot clinical trial study in order to evaluate if the use of statins, specificaly rosuvastatin is related with better outcome.

Methods: Between August and December 2006 we accomplished a prospective/retrospective non randomized clinical trial. The prospective group was treated with rosuvastatin (20mg) 10 days and the retrospective control group was extracted from our record (relation 1:3). We included patients of both sexes, >15 years and ICH by CT. Exclusion criteria were history of neoplasm, head injury four weeks before the admission, no hypertensive causes, haemorrhage in brainstem, surgery, initial hydrocephalus, and NIHSS >30.

Results: We analyzed 18 patients with rosuvastatin and 57 controls with similar initial characteristics. The mortality rate during hospitalization was 1 (5.6%) for the statins group and 9 (15.8%) for the control; the hazard ratio adjusted by initial Glasgow, intubation, admission in intensive care unit, and disruption into subarachnoid space was 0.20 (95% CI, 0.02–1.67). The mortality rate at 30 days was 3 (16.7%) and 14 (24.6%), respectively; the OR adjusted was 0.153 (95% CI, 0.016–1.486).

Conclusions: The use of statins in acute phase of ICH seems to be related to better outcome. Additional studies are guaranted.