ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Knowing the mortality of the population that goes to medical care, allows to the hospitals institutions and the government to make decisions on the services of health and the conditions of attention. Our objective was to describe the frequency and trend of the main causes of neurological hospital mortality for the period 2002-2007 in the National Institute of Neurology andNeurosurgery "Manuel Velasco Suárez". METHODS: The data was obtained from hospital discharge registers and medical records. Rates of hospital mortality and the tendency were calculated during the period of study. RESULTS: The overall mortality rate was 4.9 per each 100 discharges. The leading causes of death were cerebrovascular diseases and brain tumors and there was a tendency for increased mortality in cases associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) for men p = 0.004 and p = 0.05 for women with epilepsy, and with a status of epileptic condition. CONCLUSIONS: The cerebrovascular diseases and brain tumors tend to hold the first places. The mortality for neurological complications resulting from the diseases caused by the HIV is increasing. It is necessary to promote programs to prevent cardiovascular and HIV infection risk factors, to decrease the mortality rates from these diseases.
