Hemostasis and intracranial surgery

Preoperative and postoperative coagulation studies were performed in 25 patients undergoing various intracranial surgical procedures. Coagulation abnormalities, mostly consisting of an increase of fibrin/fibrinogen degradation product concentration, either appeared or increased postoperatively in 18 patients. This incidence of postoperative appearance or increase of coagulation abnormalities is higher than that reported in a comparable study of patients after general surgical procedures, and also higher than that of coagulation abnormalities in a previous study of patients after blunt head injury. Although the coagulation abnormalities after intracranial surgery were usually small, they tended to be larger in patients with more extensive intracranial procedures.