BACKGROUND: Pre-treatment with cholesterol lowering drugs of the statin family 
may exert protective effects in patients with ischaemic stroke and subarachnoid 
haemorrhage but their effects are not clear in patients with intracerebral 
haemorrhage (ICH).
METHODS: We recruited patients admitted to our University Hospital with an acute 
ICH and analysed pre-admission demographic variables, pre-morbid therapy, 
clinical and radiological prognostic markers and outcome variables including 
90-day modified Rankin score and NIH stroke scale score (NIHSS).
RESULTS: We recruited 399 patients with ICH of which 101 (25%) were using 
statins. Statin users more often had vascular risk factors, had significantly 
lower haematoma volumes (P = 0.04) and had lower mortality rates compared with 
non-users (45.6% vs. 56.1%; P = 0.11). However, statin treatment did not have a 
statistically significant impact on mortality or functional outcome on multiple 
logistic regression analysis.
CONCLUSIONS: Treatment with statins prior to ICH failed to show a significant 
impact on outcome in this analysis despite lower haematoma volumes.