Intracranial pressure in subarachnoid hemorrhage. Preliminary report in 36 cases

Thirty-six patients with SAH were submitted to continuous ICP monitoring: in 33 cases a continuous ventricular fluid presssure recording was performed in acute stage. According to Hunt and Hess, 2 patients were graded I, one II, one III, 13 IV and 16 V. In the remaining 3 cases who developed a normal pressure hydrocephalus 15, 20 and 40 days from bleeding an extradural miniaturized transducer was applied. B and C waves were common findings in acutely recorded patients. Typical A waves accompanied base line recordings in patients with NPH. From the analysis of data the authors evidenced that elevated ICP values have been registered not only in patients graded as III, IV and V but also in those graded I and II: as 89% of patients belong to grades IV and V it was impossible to correlate clinical status with ICP. In patients with spasm ICP values higher than 20 mmHg were never noted during recording time from 60 hr to 10 days). In order to reduce intracranial hypertension CSF drainage was performed in 33 patients acutely registered. In patients graded I and II this procedure was followed by an ICP reduction and an improvement of the clinical status. In none of the patients graded IV and V, in spite of pressure maintained at 10 mmHg, did CSF drainage affect the clinical evolution.