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Author Spotlight: Developing Innovative Therapeutic Strategies for Hemorrhagic Shock Research
Published on: March 22, 2024
Predictors of hemorrhagic transformation differences between patients treated or not with reperfusion therapy
Joao Brainer Clares de Andrade1, Jay P Mohr2, Fabricio Oliveira Lima3
1Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Rua Napoleao de Barros, 715, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil; Columbia University, Doris and Stanley Tananbaum Stroke Center, 710 W 168th St. Neurological Institute of New York. 6TH Floor. NI 614, 10032. New York City, NY, USA.
Background:
Hemorrhagic transformation (HT) is a dreaded complication in stroke patients who were treated or not with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (tPA). There are many predictive scores of HT, but all of them included patients treated with tPA. Molecular effects of tPA and clinical aspects of eligible patients for tPA therapy may imply specific HT's risk factors. We aimed to describe HT's characteristics and risk factors in patients treated or not with tPA.
Methods:
We included 1565 consecutive stroke patients admitted to a Comprehensive Stroke Center, from 2015 to 2017. All included patients underwent a follow-up neuroimaging within seven days after admission. From a logistic regression model, we derived a score based on the beta-coefficients. The accuracy of the models was attested by Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis.
Results:
Low ASPECTS, blood glucose ≥ 180 mg/dL, tPA treatment, and cardio-aortic embolism were predictors of HT. Male sex, leukoaraiosis, and hyperdense MCA sign were associated with HT in non-treated patients. Diastolic blood pressure ≥ 105 mmHg was a risk factor only in non-treated patients. The cutoff of our predictive score of HT was higher in patients not treated with tPA (5 vs 2 points).
Conclusions:
High arterial blood pressure was associated with HT only in patients treated with tPA. Different cutoffs and accuracy measurements suggest that scoring systems derived from patients treated with tPA may not be efficient to predict HT in non-treated patients. Further directions indicate considering the use of reperfusion therapies to select the most accurate predictive variables of HT.

