Cerebral Venous Thrombosis in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review

The clinical epidemiology of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) in Sub-Saharan Africa is unknown. Such information may be relevant for service planning, prevention and for adapting existing CVT management guidelines to that zone of the World.

Systematic review to describe the demography, associated conditions, clinical and neuroimaging features, treatment and outcome of CVT in Sub-Saharan Africa.

We searched MEDLINE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, clinicaltrials.gov and reference lists of included studies for studies reporting original data on CVT in sub-Saharan Africa. We included 20 observational studies describing 287 CVT patients, 11 case reports (13 patients) and 9 case series (274 patients). All studies had a high risk of bias. In case series 58.6 % of the patients were female, the most common associated condition was infection (63.1%), followed by oral contraceptives (7.3%), pregnancy/puerperium (6.2 %), and prothrombotic conditions (2.2%). CT was the most common method to diagnose CVT (85%). Ninety-nine percent (101/102) of patients reported in case series after the year 2000 were anticoagulated. In case series, 21/210 with information (10 %) patients died in the acute phase, while 60/129 with information (46.5%) recovered without sequels.

The low number of reported CVT cases from Sub-Saharan Africa suggests that CVT is either infrequent, not diagnosed or not reported. Infection is the most common risk factor. Most CVT cases were confirmed by CT alone. Almost all patients reported after year 2000 received anticoagulation. Death rate was higher than in high income countries.