Gon Y, et al. - Physicians designed this study to examine the hypothesis that cancer was correlated with poor outcomes following intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). They proposed that following ICH, cancer was an independent predictor of poorer outcomes, especially distant metastatic cancers.

• A total of 3137 consecutive patients admitted to the stroke unit of Osaka University Hospital were reviewed.
• The physicians extracted patients diagnosed with ICH and divided into two groups according to the presence of cancer.
• They compared the ICH characteristics between the groups.
• Using 30-day and 90-day modified Rankin Scale (mRS), the outcomes were measured.

• The frequency of cancer was 15.3% among the 399 ICH patients (37.1% women; median age, 66 years).
• Out of these, 70.5% of patients had distant metastatic cancers.
• Cancer patients were comparable in the Glasgow coma scale, hematoma volume, and the frequency of infratentorial location and intraventricular hemorrhage extension compared to controls, but had poorer outcomes following ICH.
• Ordinal logistic regression analysis demonstrated that following ICH, cancer was independently correlated with poor outcomes (odds ratio, 5.14; 95% confidence interval, 2.63-10.06).
• The physicians made adjustment for covariates: age, sex, time from onset to admission, prior use of antithrombotic agents, pre-stroke mRS, Glasgow coma scale, hematoma volume, infratentorial location, and intraventricular hemorrhage extension.
• The effect remained significant after assessment with 90-day mRS but not after that with 30-day mRS when the analysis was performed using data from individuals with localized cancer.