Headache secondary to nontraumatic brain hemorrhage: a single-center, retrospective clinical study

INTRODUCTION: The predictive accuracy of clinical and paraclinical findings for headache occurrence in patients having nontraumatic intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) was tested. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The medical records of 341 consecutive nontraumatic ICH patients (106 females and 235 males), average age 56.2 ±7.7 years, presenting with headache (25.5%) and without a headache (74.5%), over a period of 5 years, were retrospectively analyzed. RESULTS: The presence of focal neurological symptoms (OR = 0.129, 95% CI: 0.044–0.372, p = 0.000), loss of consciousness (OR = 0.174, 95% CI: 0.060–0.504, p = 0.001), body temperature (OR = 0.586, 95% CI: 0.389–0.882, p = 0.010), and the values of C-reactive protein (OR = 0.989, 95% CI: 0.978–0.999, p = 0.048) at admission, as well as the presence of hematoma in the basal ganglia (OR = 0.308, 95% CI: 0.159–0.596, p = 0.000) and the presence of arterial hypertension in the medical history (OR = 0.478, 95% CI: 0.230–0.991, p = 0.047), are recognized as negative predictors for headache occurrence in ICH. The regular use of antihypertensive therapy is a prominent positive predictor for headache occurrence in ICH (OR = 1.906, 95% CI: 1.075–3.381, p = 0.027). Patients presenting with headache had a favorable clinical outcome compared to those without headache in ICH presentation (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The present results might be clinically useful for considering further diagnostic and therapeutic procedures as early as possible in patients with symptoms clinically suggestive of ICH, with and without headache in ICH clinical presentation. These data require confirmation in a prospective large-scale study.