The efficacy of cilostazol administration to treat subarachnoid hemorrhage remains controversial. We conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the influence of cilostazol administration on treatment efficacy for subarachnoid hemorrhage.

We have searched PubMed, Embase, Web of science, EBSCO, and Cochrane Library databases through July 2020 for randomized controlled trials assessing the effect of cilostazol administration in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage. This meta-analysis is performed using the random-effect model.

Four randomized controlled trials involving 405 patients were included in the meta-analysis. Overall, compared with control group for subarachnoid hemorrhage, cilostazol intervention can significantly reduce symptomatic vasospasm (odds ratio [OR], 0.35; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.21–0.60; P = 0.0001) and cerebral infarction (OR, 0.40; 95% CI, 0.22–0.73; P = 0.003) and improve no or mild angiographic vasospasm (OR, 2.01; 95% CI, 1.19–3.42; P = 0.01) and an mRS score of 2 or less (OR, 2.70; 95% CI, 1.09–6.71; P = 0.03), but revealed no obvious influence on severe angiographic vasospasm (OR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.27–1.02; P = 0.06). There were no increase in adverse events (OR, 1.17; 95% CI, 0.54–2.52; P = 0.69), hemorrhagic events (OR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.06–6.27; P = 0.69), and cardiac events (OR, 2.14; 95% CI, 0.44–10.27; P = 0.34) after the cilostazol intervention than control intervention.

Cilostazol treatment may be effective to treat subarachnoid hemorrhage in the terms of symptomatic vasospasm, cerebral infarction, no or mild angiographic vasospasm, and an mRS score of 2 or less.