Introduction: Acute phase hyperglycemia is independently associated with an increased risk of death and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH) in stroke patients treated with intravenous thrombolysis. Whether postoperative hyperglycemia is an independent predictor of sICH after endovascular therapy remains unknown. Here, we assessed whether hyperglycemia after endovascular therapy can predict sICH.
Methods: Consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients who were treated with mechanical thrombectomy with or without subsequent stent implantation were analyzed. The primary outcome was the occurrence of sICH within the first 7 days after endovascular treatment. The second outcome was other forms of hemorrhagic transformation (HT), including parenchymal hematoma (PH) and parenchymal hematoma type 2 (PH-2).
Results: One hundred and fifty-six patients were included. Fifteen patients (9.62%) developed sICH after endovascular therapy. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, postoperative glucose values were independently associated with sICH after endovascular therapy. Furthermore, adding postoperative glucose values to conventional risk factors led to a substantial reclassification for sICH following endovascular therapy (net reclassification improvement = 28.1%; p = .014). Moreover, postoperative glucose values were found to be risk factors for PH-2.
Conclusions: We found that postoperative glucose values might be an independent risk factor for sICH in patients with anterior circulation large vessel occlusion who are treated with mechanical thrombectomy. Adding postoperative glucose values to conventional risk factors could improve risk stratification for sICH following endovascular therapy.
Keywords: Endovascular therapy; Hemorrhagic transformation; Postoperative hyperglycemia; Stroke.
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.