Research article

Liver cirrhosis, other liver diseases, and risk of hospitalisation for intracerebral haemorrhage: A Danish population-based case-control study

Henning Grønbæk¹ , Søren P Johnsen² , Peter Jepsen² , Mette Gislum² , Hendrik Vilstrup¹ , Ulrik Tage-Jensen³ and Henrik T Sørensen²

¹  Department of Medicine V, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark

²  Department of Clinical Epidemiology, Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark

³  Dept. Medical Gastroenterology (Medical Center), Aalborg, Denmark

author email corresponding author email

BMC Gastroenterology 2008, 8:16doi:10.1186/1471-230X-8-16

Published:	24 May 2008

Abstract

Background

Liver diseases are suspected risk factors for intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH). We conducted a population-based case-control study to examine risk of ICH among hospitalised patients with liver cirrhosis and other liver diseases.

Methods

We used data from the hospital discharge registries (1991–2003) and the Civil Registration System in Denmark, to identify 3,522 cases of first-time hospitalisation for ICH and 35,173 sex- and age-matched population controls. Among cases and controls we identified patients with a discharge diagnosis of liver cirrhosis or other liver diseases before the date of ICH. We computed odds ratios for ICH by conditional logistic regressions, adjusting for a number of confounding factors.

Results

There was an increased risk of ICH for patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis (adjusted OR = 4.8, 95% CI: 2.7–8.3), non-alcoholic liver cirrhosis (adjusted OR = 7.7, 95% CI: 2.0–28.9) and non-cirrhotic alcoholic liver disease (adjusted OR = 5.4, 95%CI:3.1–9.5) but not for patients with non-cirrhotic non-alcoholic liver diseases (adjusted OR = 0.9, 95%CI:0.5–1.6). The highest risk was found among women with liver cirrhosis (OR = 8.9, 95%CI:2.9–26.7) and for patients younger than 70 years (OR = 6.1, 95%CI:3.4–10.9). There were no sex- or age-related differences in the association between other liver diseases (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) and hospitalisation with ICH.

Conclusion

Patients with liver cirrhosis and non-cirrhotic alcoholic liver disease have a clearly increased risk for ICH.