Serum substance P levels and early mortality of spontaneous intracerebral haemorrhage patients

•Non-surviving showed higher serum substance P levels than surviving patients during the first week.•There is an association between serum substance P levels and early mortality.•Serum substance P levels could be used as biomarker of prognosis. Substance P, a neuropeptide of the tachykinin family, is involved in the neuroinflammation of different diseases of the central nervous system. To our knowledge, there is no published data on the level of circulating substance P levels in the prognosis of patients with spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). Therefore, the objectives of this observational and prospective study were to determine whether serum substance P levels in ICH patients were associated with early mortality and whether could be used in the mortality prognostic. We included patients with severe primary supratentorial ICH (defined as Glasgow Coma Scale < 9) from 6 Intensive Care Units of Spanish hospitals. We determined serum substance P levels at the time of severe ICH diagnosis, at fourth and at eighth day. Thirty-day mortality was considered the end-point study. Non-surviving (n=53) compared to surviving ICH patients (n=64) showed higher serum substance P levels at day 1 (p