Analysis of Age and Prevention Strategy on Outcome after Cerebral Venous Thrombosis

We identified adult CVST patients in our centers. Functional outcome and prevention strategy were extracted from medical records. Modified Rankin Scale (mRS) ≤ 1 is considered a good functional outcome.

A total of 113 patients were identified. The most common presenting symptoms were headache (86.72%) and nausea/vomiting (56.63%); the top two identified risk factors were local head/neck infection (27.43%) and pregnancy/puerperal period (19.47%). The medical encounter lag time was 0.04 d-120 d. Four enrolled patients were diagnosed as CVST again, and the interval time was 3-8 years from the first time. Thrombus was most frequently seen at superior sagittal sinus (53.10%) and sigmoid sinus (50.44%). 94 (83.19%) of the patients had good outcomes. In the acute phase, 91 (80.53%) patients received low molecular weight heparin, 29 (25.66%) took aspirin, 7 (6.19%) patients were put on low molecular weight heparin and aspirin together. During our follow up (6-24 m), there were 10 (8.85%) patients who suffered from thrombotic event recurrence. For the patients > 40 years old, they tended to suffer from neurological deficit (25.00%) and stupor/coma (16.67%) (p > 0.05), with a higher rate of hemorrhage (20.83%) and death (4.16%) when compared with the younger patients (10.77% and 1.53%, separately) (p > 0.05).

Functional outcome after CVST appears good. For the patients over 40-year-old, neurological deficit and altered consciousness were more common, accompanied by a higher rate of hemorrhage and mortality. The recurrent rate of CVST was low, longer-term follow up needed. The prevention strategy after CVST was uncertain, further studies needed.