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(Stroke. 1997;28:1401-1405.)
© 1997 American Heart Association, Inc.

Articles

Blood Pressure Changes in Acute Cerebral Infarction and Hemorrhage

Litsa Morfis, MBBS, FRACP; Raymond S. Schwartz, MBBS, FRACP; Roslyn Poulos, MBBS, MPH; Laurence G. Howes, MBBS, PhD, FRACP

From the Departments of Aged Care (L.M., R.S.S.) and Clinical Pharmacology (L.G.H.), St George Hospital and University of New South Wales, Kogarah; and School of Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, and Department of Statistics, Macquarie University, North Ryde (R.P.), New South Wales, Australia.

Correspondence to Dr L. Morfis, Department of Clinical Pharmacology, St George Hospital, Gray St, Kogarah, NSW 2217, Australia.

Background and Purpose We sought to investigate the changes in blood pressure (BP) that occur after hospitalization of patients with different types of acute stroke.

Methods Twenty-four–hour ambulatory BP monitoring was performed on days 1 and 7 after admission to the hospital in 72 patients with acute stroke (44 thromboembolic strokes, 18 lacunar infarcts, and 10 intracerebral hemorrhages) and in 22 control patients. Stroke was categorized clinically into the above stroke subtypes with radiological confirmation. The controls were patients admitted with a range of acute medical problems other than stroke who were not severely ill or in significant pain. Left ventricular hypertrophy was assessed with echocardiography. Multiple linear regression was used to determine the effect of stroke category on BP after adjustment for the effects of potential confounders.

Results Patients with thromboembolic and lacunar strokes had significantly higher systolic BP (SBP) on day 1 than control subjects (mean, 8.6% and 13.2%, respectively). Diastolic BP (DBP) was also significantly higher for patients with thromboembolic and lacunar strokes on day 1 (mean, 11.7% and 14.6%, respectively). Patients with intracerebral hemorrhage had SBP 9.7% and DBP 6.3% higher than control subjects on day 1, but the results did not achieve statistical significance. By day 7 there was no significant difference in SBP or DBP between the stroke subgroups and control subjects.

Conclusions BP is elevated after stroke but resolves spontaneously after 7 days. This transient elevation in BP does not appear to result solely from the stress of hospitalization.

Key Words: blood pressure • cerebral infarction • hypertension • lacunar infarction

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