Background and Purpose:
lymphopenia is increasingly recognized as a consequence of acute illness and may predispose to infections. We investigated whether admission lymphopenia (AL) is associated with increased risk of infectious complications and poor outcome in patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH).
Methods:
we analyzed a prospectively collected cohort of ICH patients ascertained between 1994 and 2015. Subjects were included if they had a lymphocyte count obtained within 24 h from onset and AL was defined as lymphocyte count<1000/uL. Infectious complications were assessed through retrospective chart review and the association between AL, infectious complications and mortality was investigated with a multivariable Cox regression and logistic regression respectively.
Results:
2014 patients met the inclusion criteria (median age 75, males 54.0%) of whom 548 (27.2%) had AL and 605 (30.0%) experienced an infectious complication. Overall case fatality at 90 days was 36.9%. Patients with AL were more severely affected, as highlighted by larger hematoma volume, higher frequency of intraventricular hemorrhage and lower Glasgow Coma Scale score (all p<0.001). AL was independently associated with increased risk of pneumonia (Hazard Ratio [HR] 1.65, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.32-2.05, p<0.001) and multiple infections (HR 1.75, 95% CI 1.22-2.51, p=0.002). The association with urinary tract infection, sepsis or other infections was not significant. AL was also an independent predictor of 90-day mortality (odds ratio 1.55, 95% CI 1.18-2.04, p=0.002) after adjusting for confounders.
Conclusions:
AL is common in ICH and associated with increased risk of infectious complications and poor outcome. Further studies will be needed to determine whether prophylactic antibiotics in ICH patients with AL can improve outcome.
Plasma D‐dimer predicts poor outcome and mortality after spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage