CIGARETTE-SMOKING AND RISK OF PRIMARY INTRACEREBRAL HEMORRHAGE - A POPULATION-BASED CASE-CONTROL STUDY

From September 1985 to December 1989 a total of 158 patients had prima ry intracerebral haemorrhage in the population of 116000 in the Jyvask yla Region, Central Finland. All had the diagnosis confirmed by either computerised tomography or necropsy, and information on cigarette smo king habits was available in 155 patients, 20% of whom were current ci garette smokers. One control was selected for each of the 155 patients matched on sex, age, and residence from the census of Central Finland . The odds ratio of primary intracerebral haemorrhage of current cigar ette smokers compared with current non-smokers was estimated on basis of the number of discordant pairs as 1.4 (95% confidence interval 0.7 to 2.8). Adjustment for hypertension or diabetes did not change this e stimate. Our data did not show evidence of an positive association of cigarette smoking and risk of primary intracerebral haemorrhage. This assumption was strenghtened when the results of previous studies and t he present study were pooled giving an odds ratio of 1.0 (95% confiden ce interval 0.8 to 1.3).