Medical expert of the article
New publications
Head injuries increase the risk of hemorrhagic stroke tenfold
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
All iLive content is medically reviewed or fact checked to ensure as much factual accuracy as possible.
We have strict sourcing guidelines and only link to reputable media sites, academic research institutions and, whenever possible, medically peer reviewed studies. Note that the numbers in parentheses ([1], [2], etc.) are clickable links to these studies.
If you feel that any of our content is inaccurate, out-of-date, or otherwise questionable, please select it and press Ctrl + Enter.
After traumatic brain injury (TST), the risk of a stroke in the next three months grows tenfold. To this conclusion came a team of scientists from the medical college at the Medical University of Taipei (Taiwan).
Cerebrovascular damage in the head caused by brain injuries can provoke either hemorrhagic (when a blood vessel bursts inside the brain) or ischemic stroke (when the brain is clogged with an artery). However, until now there have been no studies demonstrating a correlation between TPM and stroke.
TPM occurs when external forces (impact, compression, concussion) disrupt the normal functioning of the brain. Only in the United States, every 53rd resident receives such injuries every year. Throughout the world, SSTs are the main cause of deterioration in physical condition, social disorganization and death.
Using data from the national Taiwanese database, scientists estimated the risk of a stroke within five years in patients with STI. At their disposal was information on 23 199 adult patients with head injuries who underwent outpatient or inpatient treatment from 2001 to 2003. The control group was 69,597 Taiwanese with non-traumatic brain injuries. The average age of the patients was 42 years, 54% of them were men.
Within three months after the trauma, stroke was followed by 2.91% of patients with traumatic and only 0.3% with non-traumatic brain damage. It turns out that the indicators differ by a factor of ten.
Over time, the incidence of stroke in patients with STI gradually declined: for example, a year after the injury, it was 4.6 times higher than that of the control group, and five years later - 2.3-fold. At the same time, those who received a fracture of the skull bones underwent maximum risk: in the first three months after the misfortune, they had a stroke 20 times more often than those who escaped fracture.
In addition, it was found that patients with STI had a significantly increased risk of hemorrhage - subarachnoid (bleeding in the cavity between the arachnoid and mild membranes) and intracerebral (bleeding in the brain caused by rupture of the blood vessel).
After the researchers took into account the sex and age of the subjects, it was found that patients with STI often suffered from hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, atrial fibrillation and heart paralysis.
All the data obtained demonstrate the need for intensive medical observation and regular magnetic resonance imaging of the brain of patients with STI, especially in the first few months after trauma.
[