What is the significance of leukoaraiosis in patients with acute ischemic stroke?

BACKGROUND: Leukoaraiosis (LA) may have specific clinical correlates in patients with stroke, but this is not well investigated, so that the significance of LA in patients with stroke remains unclear. METHODS: In a study of 2289 patients with a first-ever acute ischemic stroke, LA was noted in 149 by the use of baseline computed tomography of the brain. These patients were compared with the non-LA group. Statistical tests, including Fisher exact test or a chi(2) test, were used to compare variables, and a multivariate approach using stepwise logistic regression was performed. RESULTS: Patients with LA were significantly older (73.7 vs 62.7 years; P<. 001), and had a higher incidence of hypertension (72.5% vs 47.1%; P<. 001) and subcortical or lacunar infarction (40.3% vs 25.4% and 21.5% vs 8.0%, respectively; P<.001) on neuroimaging studies, compared with the non-LA group. The most common cause of stroke in the LA group was presumed to be small-artery disease associated with hypertension (46% vs 13.5% in the non-LA group). Age and hypertension were very strongly associated with LA (respective odds ratios [95% confidence intervals], 1.06 [1.04-1.08] and 2.33 [1.60-3. 39]). In addition to these risk factors, a close relationship was found between LA and nonsevere stenosis (<50%) of the internal carotid artery (odds ratio, 2.23 [95% confidence interval, 1.32-3. 76]), although the significance of this association remains speculative. The outcome at 1 month after stroke was similar in both groups. CONCLUSION: Our results provide further evidence that LA is related primarily to small-vessel disease.     

Limb apraxia in acute ischemic stroke: A neglected clinical challenge?

Symptoms of limb apraxia and executive dysfunctions are currently not explicitly considered by the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale and, thus, not routinely tested by clinicians in the acute care of patients with suspected stroke. Neuropsychological testing, clinical examination, MRI, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were performed in a right-handed patient with acute onset of left-sided sensorimotor hemiparesis due to a right hemisphere ischemic stroke. Deficits in the execution of meaningless and meaningful gestures were not detected properly on initial clinical examination but were revealed later on through neuropsychological testing. Instead, the patient’s inability to respond to specific instructions in the acute care setting was mistaken to reflect severe deficits in auditory comprehension. fMRI revealed right-hemispheric localization of language in the right-handed patient. We suggest including a bedside test for limb apraxia symptoms in acute clinical care of stroke patients. The distinction between deficits in limb praxis and impairments of language can be complicated owing to the common hemispheric co-localization of the two functions.     

Does endovascular therapy change outcomes in nonagenarians with acute ischemic stroke?

Background: Ischemic strokes can be devastating for elderly patients, and randomized control trials of mechanical thrombectomy have shown encouraging results. We present the first analysis of clinical outcomes in nonagenarians with acute ischemic stroke treated with best medical therapy compared to endovascular revascularization therapy. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 42 patients 90 years or older who were treated for acute ischemic stroke. Modified Rankin scores were calculated immediately post-injury, at discharge, and at 30 days and 90 days following discharge. Student’s t-test and Wald tests were performed to evaluate whether endovascular treatment was associated with modified Rankin Score improvement at discharge, 30 days, or 90 days after discharge. Results: Follow-up data were available for 32/42 (76%) and 20/42 (48%) patients at 30 and 90 days after discharge, respectively. 8/9 (89%) patients who underwent endovascular treatment reached Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction scale 2b or better with no procedural complications. 12/42 (29%) patients, including four who underwent endovascular treatment, were discharged to hospice or deceased. No significant differences in modified Rankin Score improvement were observed between the endovascular and medical management groups at discharge (p = 0.96), at 30 days (p = 0.63), or at 90 days (p = 0.96). Conclusions: Our analysis shows that revascularization therapy is a safe treatment, but it was not associated with improved functional status in nonagenarians with acute ischemic stroke. Endovascular therapy shows promise, and larger prospective studies are necessary to assess the benefits of revascularization therapy in the elderly population.     

Clinical significance of TOAST typing of ischemic stroke in young adults

BACKGROUND: Ischemic stroke in young adults brings extremely hurts for their families and society, and the etiological factors and risk factors are different in the world. OBJECTIVE: To analyze and evaluate clinical significance of ischemic stroke in young adults by using TOAST typing. DESIGN: Case analysis. SETTING: Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Guangxi Medical University. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 64 young adults with acute ischemic stroke were selected from the Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Guangxi Medical University from September 2005 to June 2006. There were 44 males and 20 females and their age ranged from 15 to 45 years. All patients met with the diagnostic criteria of the Fourth National Cerebrovarscular Academic Meeting and certainly diagnosed with CT or MRI examination. In addition, all patients provided the confirmed consent. METHODS: ① TOAST typing: Based on X-ray of thoracic part, electrocardiography, blood routine, blood glucose, electrolure, lipid, blood coagulation test, anticardiolipin antibody, antinuclear antibody, anti-double chain DNA, antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody, crook agglutination test, syphilis antibody and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody test, patients received TOAST typing, including large-artery atherosclerotic stroke (LA), small-artery occlusion lacunar (SA), cardioembolism (CE), stroke of other demonstrated etiology (SOE), and stroke of other undemonstrated etiology (SUE). ② Risk factors: Stages of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipemia, smoking and drinking of patients were observed. Blood pressure was measured twice after onset of acute stroke, and values of total cholesterol (TC) and/or triacylglycerol (TG) were measured more than twice to finally diagnose hyperlipemia. Diagnostic criteria of diabetes mellitus: fasting ≥ 7.0 mmol/L; 2 hours after administrating glucose ≥ 11.1 mmol/L. Risk factor of smoking defined as more than 10 smokes every day in the last year or last several years. Wile, drinking defined as more than twice every weak. Hyperlipemia was measured for twice at least. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: TOAST typing and risk factors. RESULTS: All 64 accepted patients were involved in the final analysis. ① TOAST typing: CA counted for 22%, SA for 33%, CE for 19%, SOE for 16%, and SUE for 11%. Among them, percentage of SA was the highest, and there was statistically significance (P < 0.01). ② Analysis of risk factors: Numbers of smoking and drinking were 19 (43%) and 15 (34%) respectively in the males, which was more than those in the females (0, 0, P < 0.01). In addition, numbers of hypertension was more in the females than those in the males [15 (75%), 20 (45%), P < 0.05]. CONCLUSION: There are different clinical meanings for different ages in young parients according to TOAST subtypes and risk factors.     

Does age influence early recovery from ischemic stroke?

Age is the most important risk factor for developing a stroke. In addition, age may also influence stroke recovery. To allow structured discharge planning, it may be important to consider the influence of age on stroke recovery during the early phase. We studied the effect of patient age on early stroke recovery in a cohort of 2219 unselected stroke patients. Data on functional status (Barthel Index Score) were collected prospectively within 24h after admission, after one week and at discharge for 2219 acute stroke patients treated in 1999 and 2000 at 7 neurological departments in the county of Hesse, Germany. Multiple regression analyses were used to test for an association between age, relative recovery and speed of recovery of ADL after stroke. More than half of the patients (58 %) improved in functional status during hospitalization. 37 % had no change in Barthel Index score and only a small number of patients (5 %) deteriorated during this period. Relative improvement decreased with increasing age: patients younger than 55 years showed an improvement of 67 % of the maximum possible improvement compared whith only 50 % for patients above 55 years (adjusted R² = 0.120, β_age = −0.130, p < 0.001). Age only had a small effect on the speed of recovery. For younger patients functional recovery was slightly faster (adjusted R² = 0.256, β_age = −0.080, p < 0.001). Despite its strong influence on case fatality, age is a poor predictor of functional recovery during the very early phase after stroke. Resulting functional recovery depends much more on the extent of the initial disability. Advanced age should not be regarded as a limiting factor in the early rehabilitation of stroke patients. Received: 3 July 2002, Received in revised form: 16 December 2002, Accepted: 19 December 2002 Correspondence to: Andreas Ferbert, MD     

Does brain stimulation after stroke have a future?

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Transcranial methods of cortical stimulation can induce long-term changes in excitability of the cerebral cortex in humans and may be useful as therapeutic interventions in stroke rehabilitation. RECENT FINDINGS: Two approaches have been tested: (1) increasing excitability of the cortex in the stroke hemisphere and (2) suppression of the non-stroke hemisphere to reduce potential interference with function of the stroke hemisphere. The interventions have been transcranial direct current stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and implanted epidural stimulation. All have been reported to give 10-20% functional improvement in small numbers of patients in single-session studies as well as in a small number of longer-term therapeutic trials. Preliminary experiments in aphasic patients using transcranial magnetic stimulation in an interference design show, however, that stimulation of the nonstroke hemisphere can in some patients reduce verbal fluency, questioning the general applicability of the second approach. SUMMARY: Cortical stimulation appears to be a safe and promising intervention for stroke patients. More studies are needed to assess its long-term benefits on substantial numbers of patients. We need to know what type of intervention is best, which patients are likely to benefit, the optimum time to intervene and the duration of any benefits.     

Acute seizures in acute ischemic stroke: does thrombolysis have a role to play?

Seizures appear at stroke presentation, during the acute phase or as a late complication of stroke. Thrombolysis has not been investigated as a risk factor despite its potential neurotoxic effect. We try to identify risk factors for seizures during the acute phase of ischemic stroke in a cohort including thrombolysed patients. We undertook a case–control study at a single stroke center using data from Acute Stroke Registry and Analyse of Lausanne (ASTRAL). Patients with seizure occurring during the first 7 days following stroke were retrospectively identified. Bi-variable and multivariable statistical analyses were applied to compare cases and randomly selected controls. We identified 28 patients experiencing from seizures in 2,327 acute ischemic strokes (1.2 %). All seizures occurred during the first 72 h. Cortical involvement, thrombolysis with rt-PA, arterial recanalization, and higher initial NIHSS were statistically associated with seizures in univariated analysis. Backward linear regression identified cortical involvement (OR 7.53, 95 % CI 1.6–35.2, p < 0.01) and thrombolysis (OR 4.6, 95 % CI 1.6–13.4, p = 0.01) as being independently associated with seizure occurrence. Overall, 3-month outcome measured by the modified Rankin scale (mRS) was comparable in both groups. In the subgroup of thrombolysed patients, outcome was significantly worse at 3 months in the seizure group with 9/12 (75 %) patients with mRS ≥3, compared to 6/18 (33.3 %) in the seizure-free group (p = 0.03). Acute seizures in acute ischemic stroke were relatively infrequent. Cortical involvement and thrombolysis with rt-PA are the principal risk factors. Seizures have a potential negative influence on clinical outcome in thrombolysed patients.     

Should all patients with mild ischemic stroke be excluded from therapeutic stroke trials?

We aimed to investigate stroke etiology in our cohort of patients with mild ischemic stroke (MIS) and to study the effect of stroke etiology on patient outcome. We also studied the effect of intravenous (IV) recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) in this cohort. We analyzed patients with MIS who were eligible for IV rt-PA presenting within 3 hours of symptom onset with a National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score ?5 admitted from March 2006 through June 2009. Stroke etiology was determined using the Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment (TOAST) classification. Primary outcome was the discharge NIHSS score. We identified 110 patients with MIS with a male-to-female ratio of: 1.4:1 and a mean age of 69 ± 13 years. The mean admission NIHSS score was 2 ± 3. The stroke risk factors were identified as: hypertension, 82 patients (75%); previous stroke/transient ischemic attack, 36 patients (33%); and atrial fibrillation, 28 patients (26%). Stroke etiology was identified as: large vessel atherosclerosis (31 patients, 28%), cardioembolism (29, 26%), small vessel occlusion (seven, 6%) and those with other or undetermined conditions (43, 39%). IV rt-PA was administered to 25 patients (23%). Despite the use of IV rt-PA in only one patient with small vessel occlusion, patients in our study with this stroke etiology tended to have better outcomes compared to those with other stroke subtypes, although the difference was not statistically significant. The discharge NIHSS score did not show any statistically significant difference between the treated and untreated patients with MIS. Our study shows that MIS may be caused by non small vessel occlusion in more patients than previously reported and this subgroup of patients with MIS should not be excluded from trials of intravenous and endovascular therapies.     

Genetic polymorphisms of human β-defensins in patients with ischemic stroke

Tiszlavicz Z, Somogyvári F, Szolnoki Z, Sztriha LK, Németh B, Vécsei L, Mándi Y. Genetic polymorphisms of human β‐defensins in patients with ischemic stroke.
Acta Neurol Scand: 2012: 126: 109–115.
© 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Objectives and Methods – Genetic predisposition of the inflammatory host response may affect the development of stroke. On the basis of the theory of infectious burden and risk of stroke, we considered it of interest to investigate the relevance of the single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the DEFB1 gene and the copy number variant (CNV) of the DEFB4 genes in ischemic stroke. Results – There were no significant differences in the genotype frequencies of the three SNPs of the DEFB1 gene between the patients with stroke (n = 312) and the healthy blood donors (n = 221). However, a higher frequency of a lower (<4) copy number of the DEFB4 gene was observed in the patients with ischemic stroke as compared with the healthy controls (40% vs 24%, respectively). Additionally, low plasma concentrations of hBD‐2 (187 ± 20 pg/ml) were characteristic of the patients with fewer than four copy numbers relative to those with more than four copy numbers (385 ± 35 pg/ml). Conclusions – The low copy number of the DEFB4 gene, involving a weakened antimicrobial defense of the host, might be important in the pathogenesis of stroke.     

Reasons for diagnostic delay in patients with out-of-hospital acute ischemic stroke

INTRODUCTION META analysis suggests that, at present, stroke unit is the most ef- fective therapy for ischemic stroke, and thrombolysis is the sec- ondary therapy[1]. However, time window is a common problem in various therapies of acute ischemic stroke; …