Association between non-HDLC and 1-year prognosis in patients with spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage: a prospective cohort study from 13 hospitals in Beijing

OBJECTIVES: Previous studies suggested an inverse association between lipoprotein cholesterols and bleeding risk, while limited data were available about the predictive value of lipoproteins on intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). Our recent research series showed that higher non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (non-HDLC) was an independent predictor of favourable 3-month outcome in ICH patients, we thus aimed to further investigate the association between non-HDLC levels and 1-year functional outcomes after ICH. DESIGN: Prospective multicentre cohort study. SETTING: 13 hospitals in Beijing, China. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 666 ICH patients were included between December 2014 and September 2016. METHODS: Non-HDLC was calculated by subtracting HDL-C from total cholesterol. Patients were then grouped by non-HDLC levels into three categories: <3.4 mmol/L, 3.4–4.2 mmol/L and ≥4.2 mmol/L. Both the univariate and multivariate logistic regressions were used to assess the association between non-HDLC levels and 1-year unfavourable functional outcomes (modified Rankin Scale ≥3) in ICH patients. Moreover, sensitivity analysis was performed in ICH patients without statin use after admission. RESULTS: There were 33.5% (223/666) ICH patients identified with unfavourable functional outcomes at 1-year follow-up. In the univariate analysis, patients who achieved non-HDLC levels above 4.2 mmol/L had a 49% decreased risk of 1-year poor prognosis (OR 0.51, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.81). However, non-HDLC did not retain its independent prognostic value in multivariate analysis, the fully adjusted OR values were 1.00 (reference), 1.06 (0.63, 1.79) and 0.83 (0.45, 1.54) from the lowest to the highest non-HDLC group. Moreover, statin use after ICH onset made no difference to the long-term prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: Non-HDLC was not an independent predictor for 1-year functional outcome in ICH patients, irrespective of poststroke statin use. The predictive value of well-recognised confounding factors was more dominant than non-HDLC on long-term prognosis.