Targeted Temperature Management in Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage: A Systematic Review

Association of serum occludin levels and perihematomal edema volumes in intracranial hemorrhage patients

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Perihematomal edema (PHE) is one of the severe secondary damages following intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). Studies showed that blood-brain barrier (BBB) injury contributes to the development of PHE. Previous studies showed that occludin protein is a potential biomarker of BBB injury. In the present study, we investigated whether the levels of serum occludin on admission are associated with PHE volumes in ICH patients.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study included 90ICH patients and 32 healthy controls.The volumes of hematoma and PHE were assessed using non-contrast cranial CT within 30 min of admission. Blood samples were drawn on admission, and the levels of baseline serum occludin were detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Partial correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were performed to evaluate the association between serum occludin levels and PHE volumes in ICH patients.

RESULTS

The serum occludin levels in ICH patients were much higher than health controls (median 0.27 vs. 0.13 ng/mL, p < 0.001). At admission, 34 ICH patients (37.78%) had experienced a severe PHE (≥30 mL), and their serum occludin levels were higher compared to those with mild PHE (<30 mL) (0.78 vs. 0.21 ng/mL, p < 0.001). The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) of serum occludin level in predicting severe PHE was 0.747 (95% confidence interval CI 0.644-0.832, p < 0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between serum occludin levels and PHE volumes (partial correlation r = 0.675, p < 0.001). Multiple linear regression analysis showed that serum occludin levels remained independently associated with the PHE volumes after adjusting other confounding factors.

CONCLUSION

The present study showed that serum occludin levels at admission were independently correlated with PHE volumes in ICH patients, which may provide a biomarker indicating PHE volume change.

Target Temperature Management Effect on the Clinical Outcome of Patients with Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Treated with Extracorporeal Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation: A Nationwide Observational Study

This study aimed to investigate whether targeted temperature management (TTM) could enhance outcomes in patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) treated with extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) for refractory cardiac arrest. Using a nationwide OHCA registry, adult patients with witnessed OHCA of presumed cardiac origin who underwent ECPR at the emergency department between 2008 and 2021 were included. We examined the effect of ECPR with TTM on survival and neurological outcomes at hospital discharge using propensity score matching and multivariable logistic regression compared with patients treated with ECPR without TTM. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were determined. A total of 399 ECPR cases were analyzed among 380,239 patients with OHCA. Of these, 330 underwent ECPR without TTM and 69 with TTM. After propensity score matching, 69 matched pairs of patients were included in the analysis. No significant differences in survival and good neurological outcomes between the two groups were observed. In the multivariable logistic regression, no significant differences were observed in survival and neurological outcomes between ECPR with and without TTM. Among the patients who underwent ECPR after OHCA, ECPR with TTM did not improve outcomes compared with ECPR without TTM.

Nursing Management of Temperature in a Patient with Stroke

Fever is common in patients with stroke and is associated with worse outcomes. Studies in brain injury informed interventions commonly termed therapeutic temperature management (TTM) to improve the monitoring and management of fever. While the role and benefit of TTM in stroke patients has not been well studied, the nurse and healthcare team must extrapolate existing data to determine how to best monitor and apply TTM after stroke. Nurses should be knowledgeable about interventions to monitor and manage complications of TTM (eg, shivering), the studies underway to quantify the impact of fever treatment and emerging technology expected to improve TTM.

The predictive value of neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio on 30-day outcomes in spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage patients after surgical treatment: A retrospective analysis of 128 patients

Objective

The purpose of this study was to explore the predictive value of the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) on 30-day outcomes in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) after surgical treatment.

Methods

This retrospective study utilized data from patients with ICH who underwent craniotomy or minimally invasive puncture and drainage (MIPD) between January 2015 and June 2021. The patients meeting the inclusion criteria were divided into two groups according to 30-day outcomes, namely, the favorable outcome group and the poor outcome group. Sex, age, time from onset to admission, vital signs at admission, admission Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hematoma volume, hematoma location, surgical approach, and NLR at different time points were all recorded and analyzed.

Results

A total of 128 patients were finally enrolled in this study, including 32 and 96 patients in the favorable outcome group and the poor outcome group, respectively. During the course of ICH, the changing trend of NLR was to increase first and then decrease and peaked within 48 h after surgery. In the univariate analysis, systolic blood pressure, admission GCS score, hematoma volume, surgical approach, and NLR within 48 h after surgery were statistically significant. In the multivariable analysis, NLR within 48 h after surgery (odds ratio [OR] = 1.342, p < 0.001) was an independent risk factor of the 30-day outcomes in patients with ICH after surgical treatment. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the best predictive cut-off value for NLR within 48 h after surgery was 12.35 [sensitivity 82.9%, specificity 81.8%, and area under the curve (AUC) 0.877] and 14.46 (sensitivity 55.1%, specificity 87.5%, and area under the curve 0.731) for the MIPD group and the craniotomy group, respectively.

Conclusions

In the process of ICH, the value of NLR was increased first and then decreased and peaked within 48 h after surgery. NLR within 48 h after surgery was an independent risk factor of the 30-day outcomes in patients with ICH. The peak NLR >12.35 or 14.46 in patients receiving MIPD or craniotomy reflected a poor prognosis, respectively.

Development and validation of a nomogram to predict the 30-day mortality risk of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage

Background

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a stroke syndrome with an unfavorable prognosis. Currently, there is no comprehensive clinical indicator for mortality prediction of ICH patients. The purpose of our study was to construct and evaluate a nomogram for predicting the 30-day mortality risk of ICH patients.

Methods

ICH patients were extracted from the MIMIC-III database according to the ICD-9 code and randomly divided into training and verification cohorts. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) method and multivariate logistic regression were applied to determine independent risk factors. These risk factors were used to construct a nomogram model for predicting the 30-day mortality risk of ICH patients. The nomogram was verified by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), integrated discrimination improvement (IDI), net reclassification improvement (NRI), and decision curve analysis (DCA).

Results

A total of 890 ICH patients were included in the study. Logistic regression analysis revealed that age (OR = 1.05, P < 0.001), Glasgow Coma Scale score (OR = 0.91, P < 0.001), creatinine (OR = 1.30, P < 0.001), white blood cell count (OR = 1.10, P < 0.001), temperature (OR = 1.73, P < 0.001), glucose (OR = 1.01, P < 0.001), urine output (OR = 1.00, P = 0.020), and bleeding volume (OR = 1.02, P < 0.001) were independent risk factors for 30-day mortality of ICH patients. The calibration curve indicated that the nomogram was well calibrated. When predicting the 30-day mortality risk, the nomogram exhibited good discrimination in the training and validation cohorts (C-index: 0.782 and 0.778, respectively). The AUCs were 0.778, 0.733, and 0.728 for the nomogram, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (SAPSII), and Oxford Acute Severity of Illness Score (OASIS), respectively, in the validation cohort. The IDI and NRI calculations and DCA analysis revealed that the nomogram model had a greater net benefit than the SAPSII and OASIS scoring systems.

Conclusion

This study identified independent risk factors for 30-day mortality of ICH patients and constructed a predictive nomogram model, which may help to improve the prognosis of ICH patients.

Fever management in acute brain injury

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Fever is common after acute brain injury and is associated with poor prognosis in this setting.

RECENT FINDINGS

Achieving normothermia is feasible in patients with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke, subarachnoid hemorrhage and traumatic brain injury. Pharmacological strategies (i.e. paracetamol or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) are frequently ineffective and physical (i.e. cooling devices) therapies are often required. There are no good quality data supporting any benefit from therapeutic strategies aiming at normothermia in all brain injured patients when compared with standard of care, where mild-to-moderate fever is tolerated. However, recent guidelines recommended fever control in this setting.

SUMMARY

As fever is considered a clinically relevant secondary brain damage, we have provided an individualized therapeutic approach to treat it in brain injured patients, which deserved further validation in the clinical setting.

Brain temperature regulation in poor-grade subarachnoid hemorrhage patients - A multimodal neuromonitoring study

Elevated body temperature (T_core) is associated with poor outcome after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). Brain temperature (T_brain) is usually higher than T_core. However, the implication of this difference (T_delta) remains unclear. We aimed to study factors associated with higher T_delta and its association with outcome. We included 46 SAH patients undergoing multimodal neuromonitoring, for a total of 7879 h of averaged data of T_core, T_brain, cerebral blood flow, cerebral perfusion pressure, intracranial pressure and cerebral metabolism (CMD). Three-months good functional outcome was defined as modified Rankin Scale ≤2. T_brain was tightly correlated with T_core (r = 0.948, p < 0.01), and was higher in 73.7% of neuromonitoring time (T_delta +0.18°C, IQR -0.01 - 0.37°C). A higher T_delta was associated with better metabolic state, indicated by lower CMD-glutamate (p = 0.003) and CMD-lactate (p < 0.001), and lower risk of mitochondrial dysfunction (MD) (OR = 0.2, p < 0.001). During MD, T_delta was significantly lower (0°C, IQR -0.2 - 0.1; p < 0.001). A higher T_delta was associated with improved outcome (OR = 7.7, p = 0.002). Our study suggests that T_brain is associated with brain metabolic activity and exceeds T_core when mitochondrial function is preserved. Further studies are needed to understand how T_delta may serve as a surrogate marker for brain function and predict clinical course and outcome after SAH.

Temperature Difference between Brain and Axilla according to Body Temperature in the Patient with Brain Injury

Objective

Commonly, brain temperature is estimated from measurements of body temperature. However, temperature difference between brain and body is still controversy. The objective of this study is to know temperature gradient between the brain and axilla according to body temperature in the patient with brain injury.

Methods

A total of 135 patients who had undergone cranial operation and had the thermal diffusion flow meter (TDF) insert were included in this analysis. The brain and axilla temperatures were measured simultaneously every 2 hours with TDF (2 kinds of devices: SABER 2000 and Hemedex) and a mercury thermometer. Saved data were divided into 3 groups according to axillary temperature. Three groups are hypothermia group (less than 36.4°C), normothermia group (between 36.5°C and 37.5°C), and hyperthermia group (more than 37.6°C).

Results

The temperature difference between brain temperature and axillary temperature was 0.93±0.50°C in all data pairs, whereas it was 1.28±0.56°C in hypothermia, 0.87±0.43°C in normothermia, and 0.71±0.41°C in hyperthermia. The temperature difference was statistically significant between the hypothermia and normothermia groups (p=0.000), but not between the normothermia and hyperthermia group (p=0.201).

Conclusion

This study show that brain temperature is significantly higher than the axillary temperature and hypothermia therapy is associated with large brain-axilla temperature gradients. If you do not have a special brain temperature measuring device, the results of this study will help predict brain temperature by measuring axillary temperature.

Dl-3-n-Butylphthalide promotes neovascularization and neurological recovery in a rat model of intracerebral hemorrhage

Background

Cerebral stroke occurs following ischemic and hemorrhagic lesions in the brain. Survival and recovery of stroke patients depend on the severity of the initial injury but also the therapeutic approaches applied for emergent lifesaving and continuing post-stroke management. Dl-3-n-Butylphthalide (NBP), an active compound derived from Chinese celery seeds, has shown clinical efficacy in the treatment of ischemic cerebral stroke.

Results

In the present study we explored the therapeutic effect of NBP in a rat model of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), focusing on its potential role in promoting neovascularization in the perihemorrhagic zone. ICH was induced in male Sprague-Dawley rats by unilateral injection of autologous blood into the globus pallidus, with sham-operated (Sham group), vehicle-treated (ICH) and NBP-treated (at 10 and 25 mg/kg/Bid, p.o., ICH + NBP10 and ICH + NBP25, respectively) groups examined behaviorally, macroscopically, histologically and biochemically at 1, 3, 7 and 15 days (d) post operation. Rats in the ICH + NBP10 and ICH + NBP25 groups showed reduced Longa’s motor scores relative to the ICH groups at the 3 and 7d time points, while the hematoma volume was comparable in the two NBP relative to the ICH groups as measured at 7d and 15d. In the perihemorrhagic zone, the numeric density of blood vessels immunolabeled by CD34, an angiogenic marker, was greater in the ICH + NBP10 and ICH + NBP25 than ICH groups, more so in the higher dosage group, at 1, 3, 7 and 15d. Levels of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and angiopoietins-2 (Ang-2) proteins were elevated in the NBP groups relative to the sham and vehicle controls in immunoblotting of tissue lysates from the injection region.

Conclusion

These results suggest that NBP can alleviate neurological defects following experimentally induced local brain hemorrhage, which is associated with a potential role of this drug in promoting neovascularization surrounding the bleeding loci.

An update on neurocritical care for intracerebral hemorrhage

Introduction: Intracerebral hemorrhage remains one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide with few established interventions that improve neurologic outcome. Research dedicated to better understanding and treating hemorrhagic strokes has multiplied in the past decade. Areas Covered: This review aims to discuss the current landscape of management of intracerebral hemorrhage in a critical care setting and provide updates regarding developments in therapeutic interventions and targets. PubMed was utilized to review recent literature, with a focus on large trials and meta-analyses, which have shaped current practice. Published committee guidelines were also included. A focus was placed on research published after 2015 in an effort to supplement previous reviews included in this publication. Expert Opinion: Literature pertaining to ICH management has allowed for a greater understanding of ineffective strategies as opposed to those of benefit. Despite this, mortality has improved worldwide, which may be the result of growing research efforts. Areas of future research that will impact mortality and improve neurologic outcomes include prevention of hematoma expansion, optimization of blood pressure targets, effective coagulopathy reversal, and minimally invasive surgical techniques to reduce hematoma burden.

Hematoma clearance as a therapeutic target in intracerebral hemorrhage: From macro to micro

Despite the absence of an intervention shown to improve outcomes in intracerebral hemorrhage, preclinical work has led to a greater understanding of the pathologic pathways of brain injury. Methods targeting hematoma clearance through both macroscopic (surgical) and microscopic (endogenous phagocytosis) means are currently under investigation, with multiple clinical trials ongoing. Macroscopic methods for removal involve both catheter- and endoscope-based therapies to remove the hematoma through minimally invasive surgery. Microscopic methods targeting hematoma clearance involve augmenting endogenous clearance pathways for red blood cells and altering the balance between phagocytosis and red blood cell lysis with the release of potentially harmful constituents (e.g. hemoglobin and iron) into the extracellular space.

Brain temperature but not core temperature increases during spreading depolarizations in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage

Spreading depolarizations (SDs) are highly active metabolic events, commonly occur in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and may be triggered by fever. We investigated the dynamics of brain-temperature (T_brain) and core-temperature (T_core) relative to the occurrence of SDs. Twenty consecutive comatose ICH patients with multimodal electrocorticograpy (ECoG) and T_brain monitoring of the perihematomal area were prospectively enrolled. Clusters of SDs were defined as ≥2 SDs/h. Generalized estimating equations were used for statistical calculations. Data are presented as median and interquartile range. During 3097 h (173 h [81-223]/patient) of ECoG monitoring, 342 SDs were analyzed of which 51 (15%) occurred in clusters. Baseline T_core and T_brain was 37.3℃ (36.9-37.8) and 37.4℃ (36.7-37.9), respectively. T_brain but not T_core significantly increased 25 min preceding the onset of SDs by 0.2℃ (0.1-0.2; p < 0.001) and returned to baseline 35 min following SDs. During clusters, T_brain increased to a higher level (+0.4℃ [0.1-0.4]; p = 0.006) when compared to single SDs. A higher probability (OR = 36.9; CI = 36.8-37.1; p < 0.001) of developing SDs was observed during episodes of T_brain ≥ 38.0℃ (23% probability), than during T_brain ≤ 36.6℃ (9% probability). Spreading depolarizations - and in particular clusters of SDs - may increase brain temperature following ICH.