The presence of cerebral microbleeds should not deter the use of antithrombotic treatment in patients with recent
ischemic stroke or
transient ischemic attack (TIA), new data from a pooled analysis of cohort studies suggest.
The presence of microbleeds was linked to a greater risk for both future ischemic stroke and
intracranial hemorrhage
(ICH) in the analysis. Although the number of microbleeds was
associated with a greater relative risk for subsequent ICH than for
ischemic stroke, the absolute risk for ischemic stroke was consistently
higher than the absolute risk for ICH regardless of microbleed burden or
anatomic distribution.
The analysis was presented today at the 5th European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) 2019 and was simultaneously
published online May 23 in the
Lancet Neurology.
"We
found that the relative risk of ICH goes up more dramatically with
increasing microbleed burden than the relative risk for ischemic
stroke," senior author David J. Werring, PhD, UCL Queen Square Institute
of Neurology, London, United Kingdom, told
Medscape Medical News.
"But — and this is the really key finding — it doesn't
matter how many microbleeds there were. The absolute risk of ischemic
stroke is always higher than the absolute risk of ICH," Werring said.
"This
evidence therefore does not support withholding antithrombotic
treatment in patients with a history of stroke/TIA in patients with a
high microbleed burden," he said.
Werring explained that new,
sophisticated scanning methods that are often used in assessing stroke
patients can detect the presence of microbleeds in the cerebral
circulation. In radiologic examinations, these microbleeds appear as
small, hypointense, ovoid or rounded regions.
"The question we are
addressing in this analysis is whether the presence of microbleeds in
patients who have had an ischemic stroke or TIA is a signal of an
increased risk of ICH, which could have implications for the use of
antithrombotic medications," he said. "This is something that has been
challenging stroke doctors for several years now and generating
considerable anxiety about whether to continue antithrombotic
medication.
"Our results show that regardless of the type of
antithrombotics/anticoagulants/antiplatelets used and however many
microbleeds were present, the risk of ischemic stroke is always higher
than the risk of ICH," he added. "This provides reassurance for
clinicians and patients that in patients with a previous ischemic stroke
or TIA, we do not need to worry too much about the presence of
microbleeds on the scan — they should be treated with antithrombotic
regardless."
In the
Lancet Neurology article, Werring and
colleagues note that in previous studies of this issue, the sample sizes
were small and there were few ICH outcome events. Thus, these studies
could not reliably answer the important clinical question of whether
many cerebral microbleeds or patterns of cerebral microbleeds indicate a
higher risk for ICH than for recurrent ischemic stroke.
The authors therefore conducted the current pooled analysis. The
analysis included data regarding individual patients with ischemic
stroke or TIA from 38 cohort studies in which microbleeds and future
stroke/ICH events were documented. The analysis included a total of
20,322 patients; the median follow-up was 1.34 years.
During follow-up, 189 ICH events and 1113 ischemic strokes occurred.
Results
showed that patients with cerebral microbleeds were at increased risk
for ischemic stroke (hazard ratio [HR], 1.23) and ICH (HR, 2.45) in
comparison with patients who did not have microbleeds.
Although
the HR for ICH increased more with increasing microbleed burden than
the HR for ischemic stroke, the rate of ischemic stroke always exceeded
that of ICH.
Table. Rate of ICH and Ischemic Stroke With Increasing Microbleed Burden
| Number of Microbleeds |
Symptomatic ICH (Rate/1000 Patient-Years) |
Symptomatic Ischemic Stroke (Rate/1000 Patient-Years) |
| 0 |
4 |
30 |
| 1 |
8 |
37 |
| 2 – 4 |
9 |
48 |
| ≥5 |
23 |
64 |
| ≥10 |
27 |
64 |
| ≥20 |
39 |
73 |
"These
microbleeds appear to be a marker of small vessel disease," Werring
commented. "The vessels can either get blocked or bleed. The dots on the
scan might not all be actual bleeds — they could be red cells that have
not been cleared properly or previous ischemic lesions than have
transformed into hemorrhage."
Commenting on the study for
Medscape Medical News,
Alistair Webb, BMBCh, MRCP(Neurol), DPhil FESO, University of Oxford,
United Kingdom, said the results were "very interesting."
"This
is observational data, so it is not the most reliable data we can have,
but it does provide reassurance," Webb said. "It has been a concern
that these imaging changes are a risk of future bleeding which we
haven't quantified, but this new information shows patients with
numerous microbleeds are still much more likely to have an ischemic
stroke than an ICH, so antithrombotic treatment is still likely to have
more benefit than harm."
Complements RESTART
Webb noted that this study fits in well with the
RESTART study,
which was also presented at ESOC 2019. That study showed that
restarting antithrombotic therapy for patients after an ICH was safe.
"With
these two new studies, we have a lot more security that in a patient
who has an increased risk of ischemic stroke, we can give antithrombotic
therapy and not be deterred by whether they've had an ICH (as in
RESTART) or their scan shows the presence of these microbleeds (as in
this study)," Webb said.
Werring agreed. "There is a common theme in these two studies — that antithrombotics appear to be safer than we thought."
In a comment that accompanied the article in the
Lancet Neurology,
Georgios Tsivgoulis, MD, and Aristeidis Katsanos, MD, University of
Athens, Greece, point out that the main strengths of the new microbleed
analysis are the large sample size, the prospective study design with
strict inclusion and exclusion criteria, and the comprehensive,
prespecified, robust statistical analysis. They add that the
observational study design is prone to confounding and selection and
indication biases.
They agree that
the findings "suggest that cerebral microbleed presence, burden, and
pattern on neuroimaging should not influence the decision to select
appropriate antithrombotic therapy for secondary
stroke prevention."
But
they add that additional research is required to establish whether
cerebral microbleeds should be incorporated as a neuroimaging marker in
clinical risk prediction scores of recurrent ischemic stroke or ICH in
patients with recent cerebral ischemia treated with oral anticoagulants
or antiplatelet drugs.
The
study was supported by the British Heart Foundation and UK Stroke
Association. Werring has received personal fees from Bayer outside the
submitted work. Disclosures of relevant financial relationships of the
study's coauthors appear in the original article. The editorialists have
disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
Lancet Neurol. Published online May 23, 2019.
Full text,
Comment
5th European Stroke Organisation Conference (ESOC) 2019: Presented May 23, 2019.