Stone faces more hospital tests

Tests at a San Francisco hospital have found that Sharon Stone has suffered bleeding on to the surface of her brain.

She will have to undergo another angiogram to determine whether she had an aneurysm.

Doctors found the 43-year-old actress had a subarachnoid haemorrhage, or bleeding into the space between the brain and the middle membrane covering the brain, her publicist Cindi Berger said.

She has been in hospital for several days after suffering from a severe headache.

"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 Centre 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, Dr 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 is extremely rare to have a second aneurysm, he said.