The Unsolved Conundrum of Optimal Blood Pressure Target During Acute Haemorrhagic Stroke: A Comprehensive Analysis

Intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is a devastating cerebrovascular disease, which accounts to 15% of all strokes. Among modifiable risk factors for ICH, hypertension is the most frequent. High blood pressure (BP) is detected in more than 75-80% of patients with ICH. Extremely elevated BP has been associated with early hematoma growth, a relatively frequent occurrence and powerful predictor of poor outcome in patients with spontaneous ICH. On the other hand, excessively low BP might cause cerebral hypoperfusion and ultimately lead to poor outcome. This review will analyse the most important trials that have tried to establish how far should BP be lowered during acute ICH. These trials have demonstrated either a small non-significant benefit (INTERACT-2, INTEnsive blood pressure Reduction in Acute Cerebral haemorrhage Trial) or no benefit (ATACH-2, Antihypertensive treatment of acute cerebral haemorrhage II study) when intensive systolic BP reduction was compared with modest or standard BP reduction. The more recent meta-analyses including studies investigating this issue yielded similar conclusions: aggressive BP control in the acute phase of ICH is not beneficial. For these reasons the 2018 European Society of Cardiology/ European Society of Hypertension Guidelines for the management of arterial hypertension, do not recommend treatment to immediately lower BP in patients with acute ICH and systolic BP < 220 mmHg. Careful lowering of SBP to less than 180 mmHg via i.v. Infusion may be considered only in patients with SBP ≥ 220 mmHg.