Introduction
Stroke is one of major causes of death and disability worldwide and it has become the fourth leading cause of death in the US.1 The impacts of stroke on quality of life, productivity, and health care costs are tremendous. Because of the high social and financial burden, it is important to study the prognostic factors after stroke.
Renal dysfunction is one of the risk factors for the development of cardiovascular disease, including stroke, and death.2-5 On the other hand, renal function impairment is highly prevalent in patients with stroke. Up to 50 % of stroke patients have preexisting renal dysfunction.6,7Previous studies have shown that the renal dysfunction predicts the risks of both mortality and new cardiovascular events in patient with stroke.7-9 There is a graded relationship between renal dysfunction and cardiovascular outcomes, including deaths in these patients. In our previous studies, we also found that the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is associated with risks of both 1-month and 1-year mortality and of recurrence in patients with acute ischemic stroke.10,11 Intracerebral hemorrhage is a more devastating stroke than ischemic stroke, carrying a higher risk of subsequent morbidity and mortality.12,13 Renal dysfunction has been found to be a poor prognostic factor in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage.14-18 However, other studies failed to show renal dysfunction as a significant predictor of mortality in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage.8,19 Because of previous inconsistent results, this study investigated whether the risks of 1-month and 1-year mortality are associated with eGFR levels in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage using the Taiwan Stroke Registry (TSR) database.