AN international trial run by North-East doctors has provided surgeons with a way of predicting when brain haemorrhage patients need surgery.

Brain haemorrhage affects four million patients a year worldwide and the trial, run from Newcastle University, will help to ensure the best treatment is given at the right time.

David Mendelow, professor of neurosurgery at Newcastle University and honorary consultant within the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, who ran the trials, has devised a formula published in The Lancet online which will allow surgeons to calculate when to intervene with surgery after an Intracerebral Haemorrhage.

This occurs when the blood escapes from the blood vessels into the brain itself to produce a solid clot.

Professor Mendelow said: "This study gives hope to patients at the time of their initial haemorrhagic stroke. Not only will some lives be saved, but we have shown that operating at the right time means that about one in five patients are able to regain their independence."

The results of the trial were presented at the European Stroke Conference in London.

The randomised trial, co-ordinated and completed at the Newcastle University Neurosurgery Trials Unit involved 601 patients from 78 centres in 27 countries around the world.

Prior to this trial, surgeons did not have the detailed information telling them which patients benefited the most from surgery. Now this research provides surgeons with a formula which can be applied to fine tune decision-making for all these patients.