Pravastatin may improve neurological outcome following low-grade aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage

Statins may improve outcome in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) but randomized controlled trials, including all patients with aSAH whatever their clinical severity, were negative. We studied whether pravastatin improved neurologic outcome in patients with early good neurological status, whose prognosis is related to secondary lesions as delayed cerebral ischemia (DCI). We conducted a single-center study of cases and historical controls in a neurocritical care unit. We included consecutive patients with aSAH from 2011 to 2016 with early good neurological status defined by a WFNS score ≤ 3 on the third day. Patients treated before 2014 with oral pravastatin (40 mg/day for 14 days) as a standard of care were matched using propensity score to patients treated after 2014 without pravastatin. Good neurologic outcome was defined by a Glasgow Outcome Scale ≥ 4 at neurocritical care unit discharge. We included 270 patients (135 patients with pravastatin), mostly treated with coiling (94.1%). Demographic, initial and subacute features were the same in the 2 groups. More patients experienced good outcome in the pravastatin group than in the control group (94.8% vs 74.2%; OR 7.16 95% CI [3.07 - 16.72], p < 0.001). There was no difference in the occurrence of DCI in the 2 groups. In our study, outcome on neurocritical care discharge was better in patients with early good neurological status treated with pravastatin. Another randomized controlled trial should be conducted on this subtype of population.