Prevalence of Concomitant Neurological Disorders and Long-Term Outcome of Patients Hospitalized for Intracerebral Hemorrhage with Versus without Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) related to cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) are at increased risk of developing epilepsy and cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and vascular dementia. In a retrospective cohort observation study of patients hospitalized for ICH with CAA versus ICH without CAA, we evaluated the prevalence of neurological comorbidities at admission and the risk of new diagnosis of epilepsy, relevant cognitive disorders, and mortality at 1 year. METHODS: In the TriNetX health research network, adult patients aged ≥ 55 years hospitalized with a diagnosis of ICH were stratified based on presence or absence of concomitant CAA diagnosis. Demographics and medical comorbidities were compared by using χ2 test and Student's t-test. After 11 propensity score matching, 1-year survival was assessed with Kaplan-Meier curves. The 1-year risk of new diagnosis of epilepsy, AD, MCI, vascular dementia, and dementia unspecified was assessed with Cox proportional hazards estimate. RESULTS: The study included a total of 1757 patients with ICH and CAA and 53,364 patients with ICH without CAA. Patients with CAA were older compared with those without CAA (74.1 ± 7.5 vs. 69.8 ± 8.8 years, p ≤ 0.001). Compared with ICH without CAA, patients with ICH and CAA had higher baseline prevalence of cerebral infarction (30% vs. 20%), nontraumatic ICH (36% vs. 7%), nontraumatic subarachnoid hemorrhage (14% vs. 5%), epilepsy (11% vs. 6%), and AD (5% vs. 2%) with significance at p < 0.001. After propensity score matching, a total of 1746 patients were included in both cohorts. In the matched cohorts, compared with patients with ICH without CAA, patients with ICH and CAA had lower 1-year all-cause mortality (479 [27%] vs. 563 [32%]; hazard ratio [HR] 0.80; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.71-0.90) and higher risk of new diagnosis of epilepsy (280 [18%] vs. 167 [11%]; HR 1.70; 95% CI 1.40-2.06), AD (101 [6%] vs. 38 [2%]; HR 2.62; 95% CI 1.80-3.80), MCI (85 [5%] vs. 35 [2%]; HR 2.39; 95% CI 1.61-3.54), vascular dementia (117 [7%] vs. 60 [4%]; HR 1.92; 95% CI 1.41-2.62), and dementia unspecified (245 [16%] vs. 150 [9%]; HR 1.70; 95% CI 1.39-2.08). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients admitted for ICH, patients with CAA have lower mortality but have 2-3 times more risk of diagnosis of epilepsy and dementia at 1 year, compared with those without CAA.