Nitric Oxide Donors in the Treatment of Vascular Spasm and Delayed Cerebral Ischemia in Patients with Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Secondary vascular spasm due to non-traumatic rupture of cerebral artery aneurysms is a formidable complication leading to serious disability of patients who face this disease, and in 30–50% of cases leads to death. Standard therapy used in intensive care units does not have tremendous success in the treatment of this pathology, which encourages scientists around the world to search for new drugs that can improve the outcome and increase the quality of life of patients. At the moment, the most promising non-surgical method of treatment is the use of nitric oxide donor drugs as part of complex therapy. In modern medicine, there are several ways to administer drugs of this group: intravenously, intra-arterially , intrathecally , intraventricularly and by inhalation . The method depends on the type of drug used. Despite the promise of using these dosage forms, there are a number of negative side effects, which, due to insufficient study, limit their widespread use in hospitals. This review contains studies examining the positive and negative aspects of the use of these drugs and the appropriateness of their use.