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Does the increasing use of warfarin correspond with increasing incidence of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH)? To address this question, researchers studied patients hospitalized in the Cincinnati metropolitan area with their first-ever ICH during selected 1-year periods from 1988 through 1999.
Annual ICH incidence per 100,000 persons increased from 16.5 in 1988 to 24.6 in 1999. ICH associated with anticoagulation use showed a more substantial increase: from 0.8 events to 4.4 events per 100,000 persons annually, or from roughly 5% to 17% of all ICH cases. Warfarin accounted for the vast majority of anticoagulation use in these cases. Anticoagulation-associated ICH increased most dramatically in older people — for example, by about 18-fold from …