Managing outpatient challenges for hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage

The University of Cincinnati Gardner Neuroscience Institute's Yasmin Aziz, MD, was featured in a MedCentral article discussing the challenges of managing hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage in outpatient settings.

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) accounts for only 10% of all strokes, but it is likely the deadliest. There is a need for more research to determine best practices to manage acute hypertensive ICH. 

One strategy to treat ICH is lowering blood pressure, but Aziz noted the American Heart Association does not specify a target number for blood pressure for these patients.

“It is likely that patients with severely diseased blood vessels may simply ‘live’ at higher blood pressures and cannot handle rapid blood pressure lowering," said Aziz, director, Acute Stroke Trials; associate director, Vascular Neurology Fellowship; and assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine in UC's College of Medicine; UC Health neurologist; director, NIH StrokeNet Digital Media; and co-investigator, NIH StrokeNet Ohio Valley Regional Coordinating Center.

Aziz said more research is needed to determine which patients will benefit most from rapidly blood pressure lowering interventions.

Read the MedCentral article.

Featured photo at top of brain scans. Photo courtesy of Joseph Broderick.