Higher risk of second brain hemorrhage

In her doctoral thesis, trainee neurologist Marieke Wermer shows that 16 percent of people who have had and recovered from a subarachnoid hemorrhage in the past are at risk of having another brain hemorrhage.

Wermer studied the patients an average of nine years after their brain hemorrhage. It emerged than 16 percent of these people once again had brain aneurysms. Aneurysms are blood vessels that have swollen up like a balloon and rupture easily, which is what happens in a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Smoking and high blood pressure increase the risk of another aneurysm. It also appeared that when examined later, one-third of the aneurysms could already be seen on the scans made after the first brain hemorrhage; two-thirds were actually new.

Wermer received her PhD from Utrecht University on September 29. Her thesis is called 'Long-term outcome and screening for new aneurysms after subarachnoid hemorrhage'.