What is a Brain Hemorrhage?
Canadian stroke researchers have teamed up to launch a multisite clinical trial of an image-guided treatment strategy for a serious form of stroke caused by bleeding in the brain. If proven successful, their protocol could lead to the first effective emergency treatment for intracerebral hemorrhage, the deadliest and most disabling type of stroke.
The researchers will test a strategy that uses advanced imaging technology to identify the stroke patients at highest risk of further bleeding in the brain as soon as they get to the emergency department. These patients will then be randomly assigned to either a treatment or control group. Patients in the treatment group will get an injection of recombinant activated coagulation Factor VII, a drug that has shown promise to treat bleeding. Researchers will evaluate if this novel pairing of imaging and therapy can improve outcomes in these high-risk patients.
What is a Brain Bleed?
To most people, a “brain bleed” simply means any bleed inside your head. However, a doctor – and specifically doctors who treats brain bleeds (neurologists and neurosurgeons) – would say that a “brain bleed” (also known by the medical term intracranial hemorrhage) is too broad of a term. These doctors further describe brain bleeds by their exact location.
To better understand brain bleeds, it’s important to have a basic understanding of the different types. First, there are two main areas where bleeding can occur – bleeding can occur either within the skull but outside of the brain tissue, or inside the brain tissue.
Bleeding within the skull but outside of the brain tissue
The brain has three membranes layers (called meninges) that lay between the bony skull and the actual brain tissue. The purpose of the meninges is to cover and protect the brain. Bleeding can occur anywhere between these three membranes. The three membranes are called the dura mater, arachnoid, and pia mater.
• Epidural bleed (hemorrhage): This bleed happens between the skull bone and the outermost membrane layer, the dura mater.
• Subdural bleed (hemorrhage): This bleed happens between the dura mater and the arachnoid membrane.
• Subarachnoid bleed (hemorrhage): This bleed happens between the arachnoid membrane and the pia mater.
