• Maria Kamenova, Edin Nevzati, Katharina Lutz, Armando Dolp, Javier Fandino, Luigi Mariani, and Jehuda Soleman.
• Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital of Basel, Basel, Switzerland. Electronic address: maria.kamenova@usb.ch.
• World Neurosurg. 2017 Apr 1; 100: 594-600.

BackgroundChronic subdural hematoma (cSDH) is one of the most common neurosurgical diseases typically affecting older people. Many of these patients have coronary artery disease and receive antiplatelet therapy, usually acetylsalicylic acid (ASA). Despite growing clinical relevance, there is still a lack of data focusing on the perioperative management of such patients.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to compare the perioperative and postoperative bleeding and cardiovascular complication rates of patients undergoing burr-hole drainage for cSDH with and without discontinuation of low-dose ASA.MethodsOf 963 consecutive patients undergoing burr-hole drainage for cSDH, 198 (20.5%) patients were receiving low-dose ASA treatment. In 26 patients (13.1%), ASA was not discontinued (ASA group; ASA discontinuation ≤7 days); in the remaining patients (n = 172; 86.9%), ASA was discontinued at least for 7 days (control group). The primary outcome measure was recurrent cSDH that required revision surgery owing to clinical symptoms, whereas secondary outcome measures were postoperative cardiovascular and thromboembolic events, other complications, operation and hospitalization time, morbidity, and mortality.ResultsNo statistically significant difference was observed between the 2 groups regarding recurrence of cSDH (P = 1). Cardiovascular event rates, surgical morbidity, and mortality did not significantly differ between patients with and without discontinuation of low-dose ASA.ConclusionGiven the lack of guidelines regarding perioperative management with antiplatelet therapy, our findings elucidate one issue, showing comparable recurrence rates with and without discontinuation of low-dose ASA in patients undergoing burr-hole drainage for cSDH.Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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