Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH) is a severe complication of revascularization therapy. We aimed to investigate the association of admission hyperglycemia and sICH after mechanical thrombectomy in patients with acute ischemic stroke.

We systematically searched PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library to identify studies that reported incidence of sICH in patients with admission hyperglycemia and normoglycemia, or with and without a history of diabetes, or glucose level in patients with sICH and non-sICH from inception to December 10, 2019. The estimate effects were pooled by random-effects model.

Twelve eligible studies were included with 4892 patients enrolled. The risk of sICH was significantly higher in admission hyperglycemia patients than that in normoglycemia (OR 2.93, 95% CI 1.34–6.42, p = 0.007; adjusted OR1.95, 95% CI 1.22–3.13; p = 0.006). The admission glucose level was significantly higher in sICH patients than that in non-sICH with a mean difference of 37.49 (95% CI 3.03–71.94, p = 0.03). The risk of sICH increased with elevating glucose level (adjusted OR 1.06, 95% CI 1.01–1.11; p = 0.02). The risk of sICH was not significantly increased in patients with a history of diabetes than that of those without (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.00–3.03, p = 0.05; adjusted OR 2.26, 95% CI 0.97–5.28; p = 0.06).

In patients of acute ischemic stroke treated with mechanical thrombectomy, the risk of sICH was associated with admission hyperglycemia but possibly not with a history of diabetes.