Abstract

GONZALEZ ZALDIVAR, Arnaldo; GOMEZ VIERA, Nelson; ALVAREZ SANTANA, Reinaldo  and  AVILA PADRON, Yohanka. Intracerebral hemorrhage. Study of 349 autopsies made at “Hermanos Ameijeiras” clinical and surgical hospital. Rev cubana med [online]. 2007, vol.46, n.2. ISSN 0034-7523.

A retrospective descriptive study was conducted at "Hermanos Ameijeiras" clinical and surgical hospital with the objective of precising over the causes of death from intracerebral hemorrhage and the contributing factors. Medical histories and necropsy protocols of the persons who died from this disease from 1994 to 2004 were all reviewed. Three hundred and forty nine deceased people were studied; 54,4% of them were females and the highest percentage (38,3%) belonged to the 55-74 years-old age group. Of intracerebral hemorrhages, 63,7% were supratentorial and 36,3% were infratentorial. It was also confirmed that blood hypertension affected 63,7% of these dead persons, being more common in patients with supratentorial hemorrhages (65,8%)and that 54.1% of deaths occured within the first week of hemorrhagic stroke course. Encephalic herniation was the functional cause of 67,7% of deaths whereas the main direct morphological cause was intracerebral hemorrhage as such(73%). It was concluded that blood hypertension (63,3%) was he main contributing cause of death in those persons who died from intracerebral hemorrhage.

Keywords : Intracerebral hemorrhage; blood hypertension; supratentorial; infratentorial; encephalic herniation.