Association between volume of surgery for acute hemorrhagic stroke and mortality

This study aimed to investigate the association between volume of surgery and mortality in relation to interventions for acute hemorrhagic stroke, namely craniotomy and trephination. We obtained data on acute hemorrhagic stroke patients for a 5-year period (2009–2013) from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. Hospitals were classified into 3 categories according to volume of surgery (low, medium, high). To avoid intentionally setting a cutoff, we placed the hospitals in order from those with high volume of surgery to those with low volume of surgery and divided them into 3 groups (tertile) according to the number of patients. The covariates were age, sex, hemorrhagic stroke site, type of health insurance, intensive care unit admission, history of hypertension, and Charlson comorbidity index. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed with statistical significance set at 5%. A total of 41,917 patients who underwent craniotomy (n = 20,982) or trephination (n = 20,935) for acute hemorrhagic stroke were analyzed according to hemorrhage site (subarachnoid and others). The results showed that mortality from acute hemorrhagic stroke decreased with increasing volume of surgery. For subarachnoid hemorrhage, the odds ratios of the medium- and high-volume surgery groups were significantly lower (0.74 and 0.59, respectively) for mortality within 7 days of admission, and were also significantly lower (0.78 and 0.68) for mortality within 30 days of admission than that of the low-volume surgery group. The results for other hemorrhage sites were similar. The association between mortality and volume of surgery was more evident in the craniotomy group. Although this study was limited to a single country (South Korea), it partially addressed the shortcomings of previous studies by analyzing a nationwide database and examining all types of hemorrhagic strokes.