[Effectiveness of adjuvant corticosteroid therapy for chronic subdural hematoma: a retrospective study of 198 cases]

Adjuvant treatments can be proposed in addition to surgery for patients with chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) in order to improve the postoperative outcome. According to the survey published in 2001 by the Neurosurgery French Society, 38% of French neurosurgeons use adjuvant corticosteroid therapy after surgery. Does this adjuvant corticosteroid therapy have an effect on the postoperative outcome of CSDH?

A retrospective trial was performed on patients who were surgically treated for CSDH between January 1998 and July 2002 in the Nice Department of Neurosurgery. Corticosteroid therapy was initiated just after surgery and maintained for one month. Part of the patients were not given corticosteroids enabling a comparison of two groups: "corticosteroid therapy" versus "no corticosteroid therapy".

One hundred and ninety-eight patients were included in the trial, 142 patients in the "corticosteroid therapy" group and 56 patients in the "no corticosteroid therapy" group. The difference in survival between the two groups was significant in favor of the group give corticosteroids. A multivariate analysis was carried out which confirmed the beneficial effect of the corticosteroid therapy on survival of the operated patients. Their risk of death was threefold less than those not given this treatment (p=0.006).

This study highlighted a protective effect of postoperative corticosteroid therapy on patient survival. This effect persisted at multivariate analysis. However, due to skews inherent in retrospective studies, a multicentric prospective randomized trial is being prepared in our institution to confirm these results.