October 3, 2001 SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Doctors know more about the condition of Sharon Stone, who has been hospitalized for the past several days after suffering from a severe headache.
Tests show that the 43-year-old actress suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or bleeding into the space between the brain and the middle membrane covering the brain, publicist Cindi Berger said Tuesday.
"I will be getting another angiogram on Friday," Stone said in a statement. "That should be the final determination at which point every part of my anatomy will have been photographed in detail. At last the mysteries will be resolved."
The angiogram will determine whether Stone had an aneurysm, which is a weak spot on a blood vessel that bursts.
"If they didn't find an aneurysm, this bleeding could have come from some other source," said Dr. Ashok Anant, chief of neurosurgery at Maimonedes Medical Center in New York. "If they had found an aneurysm, she probably already would've had surgery."
People who suffer from aneurysms probably were born with the condition, Anant said. The weakened blood vessel is more likely to burst when the person participates in intense exercise or suffers from high blood pressure.
If an angiogram is negative and surgery is not required, it's extremely rare to have a second aneurysm, he said.
Stone's husband, San Francisco Chronicle executive editor Phil Bronstein, took her to the emergency room on Saturday after she complained of head pain.
"I've been treated with medication," Stone told the Chronicle. "I've been very, very lucky."
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
