LAUSR

AIM The relationship between climate conditions and subarachnoid (SAH) or intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) remains controversial and studies concerning chronic subdural haematoma's (CSDH) are still lacking. Our aim is to elucidate possible causal relationships on climate change and cranial haematomas. MATERIAL AND METHODS In a retrospective study we examined all patients (N=1169) treated for subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH; n = 484), intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH; n = 417) or chronic subdural haematoma (CSDH; n = 268) in our department over a 7-year-period between 1st June 2005 until 31ͭʰ May 2012. The date of admission was correlated with the corresponding meteorological parameters which included; mean daily temperature (°C), relative humidity (%), vapor pressure (hPa), barometric pressure (hPa), cloud amount (/8), and wind speed (m/s). RESULTS Incidence of SAH tended to increase in April, ICH in January and CSDH in July, respectively, but χ² test did not reveal any statistical significance in seasonality for the three bleeding pathologies. Comparing the arithmetic average of meteorological key parameters of uneventful and eventful days by using student's t-test within the three groups (SAH, ICH, CSDH) we could not demonstrate any statistical significance (p 0.05). For SAH, logistic regression analyses revealed an increased risk associated with a decrease of barometric pressure (p = 0.021). CONCLUSION Although our data suggest seasonal variabilities of SAH, ICH and CSDH, the single weather parameters do not demonstrate causal relationships with the incidence of cerebrovascular events. However, incidence of SAH tended to increase with changes of barometric pressure which confirms previously published results and might indicate a possible underlying relationship.