Background: Delayed cerebral ischemia associated with cerebral vasospasm (CVS) in aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage significantly affects patient prognosis. Levosimendan has emerged as a potential treatment, but clinical data are lacking. The aim of this study is to decipher levosimendan's effect on cerebral hemodynamics by automated quantitative measurements of brain computed tomography perfusion (CTP).
Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of a database of a neurosurgical intensive care unit. All patients admitted from January 2018 to July 2022 for aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and treated with levosimendan for CVS who did not respond to other therapies were included. Quantitative measurements of time to maximum (Tmax), relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV), and relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF) were automatically compared with coregistered CTP before and after levosimendan administration in oligemic regions.
Results: Of 21 patients included, CTP analysis could be performed in 16. Levosimendan improved Tmax from 14.4 s (interquartile range [IQR] 9.1-21) before treatment to 7.1 s (IQR 5.5-8.1) after treatment (p < 0.001). rCBV (94% [IQR 79-103] before treatment and 89% [IQR 72-103] after treatment, p = 0.63) and rCBF (85% [IQR 77-90] before treatment and 87% [IQR 73-98] after treatment, p = 0.98) remained stable. The subgroup of six patients who did not develop cerebral infarction attributed to delayed cerebral ischemia showed an approximately 10% increase (rCBV 85% [IQR 79-99] before treatment vs. 95% [IQR 88-112] after treatment, p = 0.21; rCBF 81% [IQR 76-87] before treatment vs. 89% [IQR 84-99] after treatment, p = 0.4).
Conclusions: In refractory CVS, levosimendan use was associated with a significant reduction in Tmax in oligemic regions. However, this value remained at an abnormal level, indicating the presence of a persistent CVS. Further analysis raised the hypothesis that levosimendan causes cerebral vasodilation, but other studies are needed because our design does not allow us to quantify the effect of levosimendan from that of the natural evolution of CVS.
Keywords: Cerebral infarction; Intracranial aneurysm; Levosimendan; Perfusion imaging; Subarachnoid hemorrhage.
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