Clinical Analysis of the Factors Affecting the Prognosis of Spontaneous Pontine Hemorrhage

ABSTRACT

The prognosis of pontine hemorrhage has been reported to be extremely poor, but the wide-spread use of CT scan and MRI has led to the discovery of ssmall pontinehemorrhage which previously could not have been discovered. We analysed 28 cases of pontine hemorrhage for evaluation of contributing factors to the patients prognosis from January 1994 to December 1996. A good prognosis was achieved in patients with no or mild disturbance of consciousness, 20mm or less in the transverse diameter of the hematoma, small numbers of slices in which the hematoma was found, and the hematoma localized in the tegmentum. Two patients underwent suboccipital craniectomy with removal of hematoma. But all patients died immediate postoperative period. A comatose state on admission, transverse diameter of hematoma over 20mm, large numbers of slices in which the hematoma was found, and the hematoma localized in the basotegmentum were significant poor prognostic factors.