BACKGROUNDAntiplatelet therapy (APT) was prevalently being used in the prevention of vascular disease, but the influence of prior APT on the prognosis of patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) remains controversial. This meta-analysis was to explore the effects of prior APT on the prognosis of patients with primary ICH.

METHODSPubMed and Embase were searched to identify the eligible studies. The studies comparing the mortality of ICH patients with or without prior APT were included. The quality of these studies was evaluated by the Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale. The adjusted or unadjusted odds ratio (OR) for mortality between ICH patients with and without prior APT were pooled with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) as the effect of this meta-analysis.

RESULTSTwenty-two studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria and exhibited high qualities. The pooled OR was 1.37 (95% CI: 1.13-1.66, P = 0.001) for univariate analysis and 1.41 (95% CI: 1.05-1.90, P = 0.024) for multivariate analysis. The meta-regression indicated that for each 1-day increase in the time of assessment, the adjusted OR for the mortality of APT patients decreased by 0.0049 (95% CI: 0.0006-0.0091, P = 0.026) as compared to non-APT patients.

CONCLUSIONPrior APT was associated with high mortality in patients with ICH that might be attributed primarily to its strong effect on early time.