Data regarding the frequency of isolated thalamic haemorrhage in the different hospital-based stroke registries are scarce, the present results show that thalamic haematomas is a subgroup of haemorrhagic stroke that accounted for 1.4% of all cases of stroke and 13% of intracerebral haemorrhages. The prevalence of thalamic haemorrhage in different series of primary intracerebral haemorrhage vary widely from 6% in the series of Juvela et al. [
11] to 15.7% in the series of Tatu et al. [
12]. In a subsample of 390 with haemorrhagic stroke reported by Kumral et al. [
13], thalamic haemorrhage was diagnosed in 100 patients (25.6%).
Results of the present study show that patients with thalamic haemorrhage and patients with internal capsule-basal ganglia haemorrhage presented different clinical profiles, with sensory disturbances being significantly more frequent and speech disorders and lacunar syndrome being significantly less frequent in patients with thalamic haematoma. Prominent sensory loss, either anaesthesia or hypaesthesia affecting face, limbs and trunk, generally for all sensory modalities was found in 70.2% of patients, which is consistent with classical reports showing the predominance of sensory deficit as a cardinal feature of thalamic haemorrhage especially when the ventroposterolateral nucleus is affected [
1,
14,
15].
Speech disturbances are less frequent in patients with thalamic haemorrhage (21%) as compared with those with internal capsule-basal ganglia haemorrhage (44.2%). Dysarthria and different types of aphasia was explained in thalamic haemorrhage as a disruption of any circuit (arranged as frontal rostrocaudal/thalamic mediolaterally) leading to dysfunction [
1,
2]. However, interruption of the corticolingual pathways in the internal capsule may explain the higher frequency of speech disturbances (mainly dysarthria) in internal capsule-basal ganglia haemorrhages [
16,
17].
Clinical presentation of thalamic haemorrhage in the form of a lacunar syndrome is very rare, and was documented in only 4 patients (8.5%), 3 of whom presenting with a pure sensory stroke and 1 a sensorimotor syndrome. This finding is in accordance with a recent study of our group [
18] and with data reported in the literature showing that pure sensory stroke is classically associated with a lacunar thalamic infarction [
19].
Whereas none of the patients in the series of Kumral et al. [
13] presented with pure sensorimotor stroke, a lacunar syndrome was observed in 23.4% of our patients with internal capsule-basal ganglia haemorrhage, mainly in the form of a pure motor stroke or sensorimotor stroke. These findings are consistent with the study of Weisberg and Wall (20) who reported pure motor hemiparesis in 7 out of 10 patients as well as with other reports indicating that a small haematoma of subcortical topography in the internal capsule but also in the basal ganglia may cause a lacunar syndrome [
21].
Thalamic haemorrhage is a severe clinical condition with an in-hospital mortality rate, in the present study, of 19%, and only one patient (2.1%) was symptom-free at discharge. The mortality rate of thalamic haemorrhage was 12% after 6 ± 6 days after stroke and 17.3% within 6 months in the series of Mori et al. [
22]. In the series of Chung et al. [
23], the case fatality was 37% at the time of discharge. On the other hand, the mortality rate of thalamic haemorrhage is generally lower than that of brainstem haemorrhages or cerebral haemorrhages of multiple topographies, which show a very high in-hospital mortality rate usually greater than 40% [
3]. The mortality rate in patients with thalamic haemorrhage, however, is higher than that of patient with capsular stroke [
3,
16,
17]. Altered consciousness, intraventricular hemorrhage and advanced age were independent predictors of in-hospital mortality in patients with thalamic haematoma.
The initial level of consciousness was always found to be a predictor of mortality in the differents series [
3,
11-
15]. Previous studies reported that initially comatose or stupurous patients had the poorest chance of survival [
1,
2]. Intraventricular haemorrhage has been found to be a predictor of in-hospital mortality in some studies [
13,
24,
25] but not in others [
11,
22,
26] and one study has even suggested that intraventricular bleeding is associated with improved outcome in thalamic haemorrhage [
27]. However, our results shows that stroke-related deaths occurred in 40.5% of intraventricular haemorrhage cases and agree with that of the Steinke et al. [
25] who found that in-hospital mortality occurred in 52% of thalamic haematomas with ventricular extension and that intraventricular extension is an powerful independent predictor of mortality (Table ). Death increased with age and agree with the study of Mori et al. [
22]. In the study of Daverat el al. [
28], age was the most important predictor of death and functional outcome after spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage.
| Table 4Thalamic haemorrhage. Series reported in the literature |
Early expansion of cerebral haematoma of any topography is an important determinant of in-hospital mortality [
29,
30]. Recent studies have shown that ultra-early haemostatic therapy with recombinant activated factor VII (rFVIIa) within four hours after the onset of intracerebral hemorrhage limits the growth of the haematoma, reduces mortality, and improves functional outcomes [
31]. These preliminary findings will probably determine a change in the management of patients with acute intracerebral haemorrhage, in which ultra-early haemostatic therapy, – similar to the efficacy of early thrombolytic therapy in cerebral infarction –, followed by careful monitorization in specialised stroke units could be of paramount importance in the care of patients with intracerebral haemorrhage [
32].