Liver Cirrhosis and Risk of Intracerebral Hemorrhage

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the risk of future intracerebral hemorrhage development in patients with liver cirrhosis. METHODS: Data were collected from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. The study cohort included 948 patients with liver cirrhosis diagnosed in 1999 and 9480 age- and sex-matched patients of the same year. All patients were tracked from their index visits for 9 years. RESULTS: Intracerebral hemorrhage developed in 1.3% of patients with liver cirrhosis and 1.0% of patients in the comparison cohort during the follow-up period. Log-rank test analysis showed no significant difference between the 2 cohorts (P=0.39). A stratified Cox proportional regression model showed an adjusted hazard ratio of 1.62 (95% CI, 0.85 to 3.10) for patients with liver cirrhosis to develop intracerebral hemorrhage compared with patients without liver cirrhosis. CONCLUSIONS: Patients with liver cirrhosis had a similar intracerebral hemorrhage incidence rate but a trend of increased risk for intracerebral hemorrhage compared with the comparison cohort during the 9-year follow-up period.