Elevated blood glucose is not only linked to diabetes but is associated with increased morbidity and mortality in number of diseases.
According to a new study, among patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, hyperglycemia at admission was independently associated with increased mortality.
The study has been published in the Journal of Clinical Neuroscience.
Elevated blood glucose is frequently detected early after aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (aSAH). The researchers aimed to investigate whether hyperglycemia at admission is associated with mortality in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage.

In a multicenter observational study of patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, we defined normal glycemia, mild hyperglycemia, moderate hyperglycemia, and severe hyperglycemia as a blood glucose of 4.00-6.09 mmol/L, 6.10-7.80 mmol/L, 7.81-10.00 mmol/L, and > 10.00 mmol/L, respectively. They performed propensity score matching to obtain the adjusted odds ratios (OR) with 95 % confidence intervals (CI).
The results of the study are:
Of 6771 patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, 511(7.5 %) had died in hospital, and hyperglycemia at admission was observed in 4804 (70.9 %).
Propensity scores matching analyses indicated that compared with normal glycemia, the odds of in-hospital mortality were slightly lower in patients with mild hyperglycemia, significantly higher in patients with moderate hyperglycemia, and in patients with severe hyperglycemia
Long-term survival was worse among patients with hyperglycemia and was proportional to its severity.
Similar dose-response associations were evident for poor functional outcomes and major disability.
Hyperglycemia was associated with an increased risk of hospital-acquired infections and rebleeding
Thus, among aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage patients, hyperglycemia at admission was independently associated with increased mortality. Both moderate hyperglycemia and severe hyperglycemia were associated with an increased risk of mortality, but these associations were not seen in mild hyperglycemia.
Reference:
Jia, Lu, et al. "Association Between Hyperglycemia at Admission and Mortality in Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage." Journal of Clinical Neuroscience: Official Journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, vol. 103, 2022, pp. 172-179.