Complications of hydroxyethyl starch in acute ischemic stroke and other brain injuries.

Serious complications of hydroxyethyl starch (HES) administration have been repeatedly demonstrated in clinical trials of acute ischemic stroke and other brain injuries. Such complications have prompted the premature termination of several randomized trials. Coagulopathy and bleeding have been the most frequently documented complications in the brain injury setting and have occurred after exposure to HES solutions of widely varying molecular weight and substitutions. Severe, protracted, refractory pruritus is another HES complication. Claims of safety for HES solutions have often been made on the basis of small trials with inadequate statistical power. Additionally, the safety has been typically assessed in highly selected low-risk patient populations receiving relatively small HES doses, so that the results cannot be generalized to routine clinical practice. The preponderance of available evidence suggests that HES solutions should be avoided in acute ischemic stroke and other brain injuries.