What’s the risk of haematoma post-lumbar puncture?
The overall risk of spinal haematoma after lumbar puncture is small — at 0.2% — even in those with coagulopathies, a Danish study suggests.
Researchers used records from a variety of databases to assess the 30-day incidence of spinal haematoma following lumbar puncture in the Danish population during the decade from 2008-18.
Writing in JAMA, they reported outcomes for nearly 84,000 lumbar punctures carried out in about 65,000 people with a mean age 43, of whom one quarter were under 22 and one third were neurology patients.
Coagulopathies were present in some patients at the time of their spinal tap; 9% had thrombocytopenia (defined as a platelet count below 150 x 109/L), 3% had an activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) of more than 39 seconds and 2% had an INR above 1.4.
