Nimodipine treatment of subarachnoid hemorrhage.

In a pilot study of 6 patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage caused by a ruptured intracranial (grade IV (Hunt and Hess) aneurysm the hemodynamics and plasma-nimodipine concentrations have been observed during a 3-week period of treatment. We found that 3 patients developed reversible hypotension during the nimodipine treatment and that the hypotension tendency could be related to the plasma-nimodipine level and not to a more or less severe sensitivity to nimodipine. Repeated measurements of blood pressure, plasma-nimodipine and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) are necessary for the purpose of obtaining the optimum treatment and for evaluating the effect of treatment.