Atorvastatin Effect in Incidence and Ischemic Complications of Vasospasm After Subarachnoid Aneurysmal Hemorrhage: a Cohort Study

Up to now, the preventive and curative treatment of vasospasm secondary to subarachnoid aneurismal hemorrhage has been based on three major approaches: increasing arterial pressure and cerebral blood flow with the use of triple H therapy, increasing the ischemic threshold of neurons with nimodipine and reopening proximal arteries with angioplasty and/or intra-arterial administration of nimodipine, verapamil, milrinone or papaverine. Recently, several teams have observed the efficacy of diverse statins in the prevention of vasospasm by improving the imbalance between the nitric oxide and the endothelin pathways, a major actor in the physiopathology of vasospasm. Indeed, this family of molecules improve the bioavailability of endogenous nitric oxide and upregulate the endothelial NO synthase.

In humans, statin administered within the first 72 hours showed to significantly reduce the incidence of vasospasm up to 50% an therefore, induce a lower morbidity and mortality of this severely ill population. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that atorvastatin reduces the incidence of cerebral vasospasm-related morbidity and mortality within 1 year post aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) treated by either clipping or endovascular coiling.