[Clinical characteristics of acute cerebral hemorrhage in patients with systemic malignancy]

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the clinical features of systemic malignancy patients with acute cerebral hemorrhage as well as its underlying mechanism.

Methods: The clinical data, including presentation, lab tests and neurological images, of systemic malignancy patients with acute cerebral hemorrhage at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University between January 2003 and December 2014 were collected and analyzed.

Results: Among 61 326 systemic malignancy patients, 25 patients(0.04%)were found with acute cerebral hemorrhage and were enrolled. Out of these 25 patients, age ranged from 31 to 77 years old, with an average age of 61 years, 18 patients were males. The clinical features of the systemic malignancy patients with acute cerebral hemorrhage were found that most patients (14/25, 54.0%) lacked traditional risk factors, with sudden symptom onset and some degree of neurologic deficiency in all patients, and most hemorrhagic lesions (19/25, 76.0%) involved the hemicerebrum, for most patients (16/25, 60.0%) cerebral hemorrhage occurred after 3 days to 3 years of the malignancy diagnosis, and some malignancy patients (8/25, 32.0%) presented with cerebral hemorrhage as the first presentation. The common subtypes of malignancy found were lung cancer (8/25, 32.0%), liver cancer (7/25, 28.0%), and then gastric carcinoma (6/25, 24.0%). Most patients (22/25, 88.0%) had elevated plasma level of cancer biochemical marks (including one or more than one of cancer antigen 125, 153 and 199, carcino-embryonic antigen, and alpha fetal protein), most patients (16/25, 64.0%) were found to have coagulation disorder.

Conclusions: The unique clinical features of the systemic malignancy patients with acute cerebral hemorrhage are most patients lacking traditional risk factors, with coagulation disorder and with hemorrhagic lesions in hemicerebrum. And coagulation disorder might be responsible for the cerebral hemorrhage.