OUTCOME OF PATIENTS WHO UNDERWENT SURGICAL REPAIR OF ANEURYSM AFTER SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE

BACKGROUND: Follow-up study of patients with surgical repair of aneury smal subarachnoidal hemorrhage (SAH), looking for clinical outcome pre dictors. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Sixty two patients consecutively admitt ed to a teaching hospital, from January 1992 to December 1995 were inc luded in the study. We studied preoperative, intraoperative and postop erative features looking for their relationship with the outcome. The ultimate outcome was evaluated by means of Glasgow Outcome Scale on di scharge and 6 months later. RESULTS: Smoking (p = 0.0001) and arterial hypertension (AHT) (p = 0.0186) were more frequent in these patients than in general population, but without relationship to the outcome as with the age or the clinical status on admission. The greatest statis tical relationship was found between the level of consciousness on pos toperative awakening (measured by the Hunt and Hess scale), and the ou tcome (p = 2.53 x 10(8)). From our results we made an algorithm that c orrectly assigned 92% of studied patients to their outcome. CONCLUSION S: All patients admitted on with aneurysm SAH deserve intensive care t reatment besides their clinical grade. The level of consciousness on p ostoperative awakening was a good outcome predictor.