Clinical significance of cerebral microbleeds on MRI: A comprehensive meta-analysis of risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, mortality, and dementia in cohort studies (v1)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background Cerebral microbleeds can confer a high risk of intracerebral hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, death and dementia, but estimated risks remain imprecise and often conflicting. We investigated the association between cerebral microbleeds presence and these outcomes in a large meta-analysis of all published cohorts including: ischemic stroke/TIA, memory clinic, "high risk" elderly populations, and healthy individuals in population-based studies. Methods Cohorts (with > 100 participants) that assessed cerebral microbleeds presence on MRI, with subsequent follow-up (≥3 months) were identified. The association between cerebral microbleeds and each of the outcomes (ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, death, and dementia) was quantified using random effects models of (a) unadjusted crude odds ratios and (b) covariate-adjusted hazard rations. Results We identified 31 cohorts ( n = 20,368): 19 ischemic stroke/TIA ( n = 7672), 4 memory clinic ( n = 1957), 3 high risk elderly ( n = 1458) and 5 population-based cohorts ( n = 11,722). Cerebral microbleeds were associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke (OR: 2.14; 95% CI: 1.58-2.89 and adj-HR: 2.09; 95% CI: 1.71-2.57), but the relative increase in future intracerebral hemorrhage risk was greater (OR: 4.65; 95% CI: 2.68-8.08 and adj-HR: 3.93; 95% CI: 2.71-5.69). Cerebral microbleeds were an independent predictor of all-cause mortality (adj-HR: 1.36; 95% CI: 1.24-1.48). In three population-based studies, cerebral microbleeds were independently associated with incident dementia (adj-HR: 1.35; 95% CI: 1.00-1.82). Results were overall consistent in analyses stratified by different populations, but with different degrees of heterogeneity. Conclusions Our meta-analysis shows that cerebral microbleeds predict an increased risk of stroke, death, and dementia and provides up-to-date effect sizes across different clinical settings. These pooled estimates can inform clinical decisions and trials, further supporting cerebral microbleeds role as biomarkers of underlying subclinical brain pathology in research and clinical settings.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.022 | 0.032 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.009 | 0.043 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.005 | 0.005 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".