Abstract
Spontaneous (nontraumatic) intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. It is now believed that much of brain damage occurs in the subacute period following the initial insult via a cascade of complex pathophysiologic pathways.
Current diagnosis of ICH relies on clinical examination and various neuroimaging techniques. Blood biomarkers (BBM) provide a dynamic and powerful approach to understanding the spectrum of neurological disease and during the past decades the field of biomarkers has witnessed immense development.
Numerous BBM are associated with different pathophysiological pathways in ICH and some of them promise to be useful as a contributing additional information to current tools for diagnosis, therapy monitoring, risk stratification and prognosis. For implementation into clinical routine, larger prospective studies will be needed.
In this article we discuss history and current status of biomarkers research in hemorrhagic stroke.