Stroke is marked by sudden symptoms leading to neurological function loss due to brain bleeding or impaired blood supply. Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is the most common stroke subtype, involving bleeding in the brain parenchyma. A craniotomy is performed to evacuate the hematoma, reducing pressure and potentially restoring neurological functions such as consciousness, motor skills, and blood pressure. This study aims to compare preoperative and postoperative neurological deficits in ICH stroke patients who underwent craniotomy.

An analytical observational study with a cross-sectional design was conducted using purposive sampling in patients diagnosed with ICH stroke who underwent craniotomy in a tertiary hospital. Data were analyzed using the McNemar and Wilcoxon tests. A p < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Of the 162 patients with ICH stroke, most were male (56.8%) and aged 45 to 54 years (32.1%). Facial nerve paresis significantly improved after surgery (p = 0.006). All patients were seizure-free postoperatively. Motor function also showed significant improvement (p = 0.001). Blood pressure decreased significantly after surgery (p < 0.001) and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores improved (p = 0.005).

There is a significant improvement in neurological deficits between the preoperative and postoperative stages in ICH stroke patients. Craniotomy significantly improves neurological outcomes, including facial nerve paresis, motor function, seizures, blood pressure control, and GCS scores in patients with ICH stroke.

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Dr. Ramelan Naval Center Hospital Surabaya with ethical clearance number 100/EC/KEP/2024, approved on July 30, 2024. All clinical practices and observations were conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from all study subjects.

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

O.M.A.: Writing—original draft, study conception and design, investigation, conceptualization. I.W.S.: Data collection, visualization, writing—review and editing. W.D.: Data curation, methodology, formal analysis, analysis and interpretation of results, writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Article published online:
03 March 2026

© 2026. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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