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(Stroke. 2000;31:2049.)
© 2000 American Heart Association, Inc.
Original Contributions |
From the Department of Neurology, Toda Central General Hospital, Saitama, Japan (H.T., M.F.); Department of Neurology, Neurological Institute, Tokyo Womens Medical University, Tokyo, Japan (S.U., K.O., Y.U.); and Department of Neurology, Teikyo University Hospital, Tokyo, Japan (M.K.).
Correspondence to Hideaki Tei, Department of Neurology, Toda Central General Hospital, 1-19-3 Hon-cho, Toda City, Saitama 3350023, Japan.
| Abstract |
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MethodsA total of 350 patients with first-ever ischemic
stroke who presented within 24 hours of onset were enrolled.
Based on the OCSP criteria, cerebral infarctions were divided into the
following 4 clinical categories: total anterior circulation infarcts
(TACI), partial anterior circulation infarcts (PACI), lacunar infarcts
(LACI), and posterior circulation infarcts (POCI). Clinical
deterioration was defined as a decrease of
1 points in the Canadian
Neurological Scale (CNS) (in TACI, PACI, and LACI) or Rankin Scale (RS)
(in POCI) during 7 days from the onset. In each clinical category,
deteriorating (D) and nondeteriorating (ND) patients were compared in
terms of their background characteristics, risk factors, vital signs,
laboratory data, and cranial CT at the time of hospitalization. The
acute-phase mortality and functional outcome were also compared.
ResultsThe subjects comprised 86 patients (24.6%) with TACI, 63 (18.0%) with PACI, 141 (40.3%) with LACI, and 60 (17.1%) with POCI. Overall, 90 patients (25.7%) deteriorated. The frequency was very high in TACI (41.9%), followed by LACI (26.2%) and POCI (21.7%), whereas it was very low in PACI (6.3%). There were some clinical variables that differed significantly between D and ND groups. In the patients with TACI, early abnormalities of the cranial CT and significant stenoses in corresponding arteries were more frequent in the D than the ND group. In those with LACI, the CNS and hematocrit were lower in the D than the ND group. In those with POCI, cerebral atrophy was more severe and significant stenoses in vertebrobasilar arteries were more frequent in the D than ND group. The mortality of the D groups of patients with TACI and POCI exceeded 35%, and the functional outcome was worse in the D group than in the ND group of patients with TACI, LACI, and POCI.
ConclusionsThe frequency of deterioration in acute ischemic stroke significantly differed among the OCSP subgroups, and deterioration worsened the prognosis. There were some factors that could predict deterioration: early CT findings in TACI, large-artery atherosclerosis in TACI and POCI, and stroke severity in LACI. Further research to find sophisticated radiological and chemical markers appears to be needed.
Key Words: cerebral infarction stroke classification stroke outcome
| Introduction |
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Diagnostic criteria and the time from onset of symptoms to the first evaluation are the major factors of the variation of the frequency of worsening.1 2 3 5 Although most studies have enrolled all patients with various degrees of severity into a nonstratified group and analyzed them with respect to deterioration or progression,6 different subgroups in symptoms and severity apparently exist at onset in patients with cerebral infarction. It has been suggested that the mechanism of worsening and its outcome differ between subgroups with different symptoms and severity.7
In 1991, the Oxfordshire Community Stroke Project (OCSP) proposed 4 easily defined subgroups of cerebral infarction.8 These definitions are based solely on presenting symptoms and signs and have been estimated as easy to apply, having good interobserver reliability, ability to predict the prognosis, and good correspondence to the underlying pattern of vascular origin and cranial CT.9 10 11 We have recently reported the frequency, possible predictive factors, and prognosis of clinical progression in 4 clinical subgroups according to the OCSP in 250 patients with acute ischemic stroke.7 In the present study, we added 100 patients and analyzed those aspects in deteriorating ischemic stroke.
| Subjects and Methods |
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1 point in the Canadian Neurological Scale
(CNS)5 12 13 in patients with TACI, PACI, and LACI, or a
worsening of
1 point on the Rankin Scale (RS)13 in
patients with POCI during the 7 days compared with the scores at entry.
We applied the CNS, which has been used most frequently in the
assessment of deteriorating stroke to patients with TACI, PACI, and
LACI.1 2 3 5 Many symptoms such as sensory deficit or
ataxia are systematically neglected in most established neurological
scales,14 and these domains affect most prominently cases
of posterior circulation syndrome. We considered that the RS, which is
an assessment scale of disability, is more suitable for evaluating the
deterioration in patients with POCI. We followed up each patient until
2 months later or hospital discharge. Patients who had recurrent
cerebral infarction in another vascular territory during observation
period were excluded. Standard blood and coagulation tests were
performed in all patients. Patients underwent cardiac and large-artery
investigations as follows: 12-lead ECG in all patients (100%),
transthoracic echocardiography in 340
patients (97.1%), 24-hour Holter ECG in 108 (30.9%), 3-D MR
angiography (phase contrast, extracranial, and intracranial) in 279
(79.7%), conventional angiography in 3 (0.9%), and carotid
ultrasonography (B-mode) together with 3-D CT angiography
(intracranial) in 31 patients (8.7%).
In each clinical subgroup, deteriorating (D) and nondeteriorating (ND)
patients were compared in terms of the following variables:
background characteristics (age, gender, time from onset, CNS or RS at
entry, antithrombotic therapy before onset); vital signs at entry
(systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure,
body temperature); risk factors (hypertension [past use of
antihypertensive agents or blood pressure of >160/90 mm Hg at
least twice before onset], diabetes mellitus [use of insulin or oral
hypoglycemic agents, fasting blood glucose
140 mg/dL, or random blood
glucose
200 mg/dL], current cigarette smoking, transient
ischemic attack); laboratory data (C-reactive protein,
blood glucose, glycosylated hemoglobin, hematocrit, fibrinogen, total
cholesterol, triglyceride, high-density
lipoprotein; cranial CT at entry (early abnormality15
[early infarction, early parenchymatous signs], leukoaraiosis score
[according to the method of van Swieten et al16 ],
atrophy [mean of the bifrontal, bicaudate, and biparietal
indices17 ], silent infarctions [patchy, low-density
areas that are sharply demarcated from the surrounding tissue,
irrelevant to the current symptoms]; cardiac evaluation (
1mm
depression of ST segment on ECG, potential cardiac sources of
embolism18 ); large-artery disease (
50% stenosis
or occlusion of the corresponding artery); and prognosis (acute-phase
mortality [within 1 month], RS at discharge or 2 months from the
onset (patients who died were excluded).
The following antithrombotic agents were administered during the first
7 days from entry: 147 patients (42.0%) were given anticoagulants
(low-molecular-weight heparin, warfarin, or unfractionated heparin),
148 (42.3%) were given antiplatelet agents (aspirin, ticlopidine,
or sodium ozagrel, a thromboxane A2
synthetase inhibitor19 ), and 38 (10.9%) were
given argatroban,20 a thrombin inhibitor.
Continuous data were presented as mean±SD. The Student
t test was used in univariate analysis
for continuous variables and the
2 test for
noncontinuous variables. A level of P<0.05 was regarded
as statistically significant.
| Results |
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D versus ND group comparisons were not performed for the PACI group because the number of patients in the D group was too small (4 versus 59).
Table 2
describes background
characteristics and risk factors in each D and ND group of the 4
clinical categories. The only difference between D and ND groups was
the CNS score at entry in LACI, which was more severe in D group. No
other differences were detected between D and ND groups of TACI, LACI,
and POCI in the background characteristics or risk factors.
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Table 3
shows the comparisons of
laboratory data, cranial CT, cardiac, and large-vessel evaluation in
the D and ND groups of each subclassification. Among TACI patients,
early abnormalities of the cranial CT and significant stenoses
on corresponding arteries were more frequent in the D group than in the
ND group. In the LACI patients, a difference was observed only in
hematocrit, which was lower in the D group than in the ND group. In
POCI patients, cerebral atrophy was more severe and significant
stenoses in vertebrobasilar arteries were more frequent in the
D group than in the ND group. Other variables were not different
among the D and ND groups of patients with TACI, LACI, and POCI.
|
Table 4
shows the prognosis in D and ND
groups of the 4 clinical categories. The mortality of the D group of
patients with TACI and POCI exceeded 35%, and the functional outcome
was worse in the D group than in the ND group of patients with TACI,
LACI, and POCI.
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| Discussion |
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Except for a few studies, any patients with various degrees of severity have been enrolled into a nonstratified group and analyzed in the studies of deteriorating or progressing stroke.6 We sought to analyze the deteriorating ischemic stroke by subdividing patients into 4 groups according to the criteria of the OCSP. Yamamoto et al14 analyzed the clinical worsening in cerebral infarction resulting from different causes (ie, cardioembolic, large-artery atherosclerosis, small-artery disease, or other causes), whereas the precise diagnosis of these subtypes is very difficult in the early phase.11 18 Therefore, we analyzed deteriorating ischemic stroke by the symptomatic subgroups of the OCSP criteria.
The frequency of deterioration was very high in TACI, followed by LACI,
and then POCI, whereas it was very low in PACI. We previously
reported11 that the mechanism of infarction in PACI was
either cardioembolic or large-artery atherosclerosis in
equal numbers, whereas in TACI >60% of cases were caused by
cardioembolism and only 20% caused by large-artery
atherosclerosis. It has been suggested that the
thrombus from the heart is generally larger than that from the large
vessel.25 26 The low frequency of deterioration in PACI
could be explained by relatively small emboli from the heart or from
the large artery. Favorable short-term prognosis in PACI patients was
described by the first report of the OCSP,8 and Pinto at
al27 also reported a low frequency of worsening in PACI
(4%). However, Dahl et al28 reported that, among the 4
OCSP groups, the progression was most frequent in the PACI group.
Further studies are warranted. It has been suggested that the early
progression and final outcome were dependent on the initial stroke
severity.6 13 29 DeGraba et al6 recently
reported that only14.8% of patients with the NIHSS score of
7
experienced progression, whereas 65.9% of patients with an NIHSS score
of >7 experienced progression. According to the NIHSS, the majority of
patients with TACI would be scored >7 and the majority of those with
PACI would be scored
7. The high frequency of worsening in TACI and
the low frequency of worsening in PACI in our results were
consistent with those reported by DeGraba et
al.6
The fact that the CNS at entry was significantly lower in the D than in
the ND group of patients with LACI again implies the importance of
initial stroke severity as a determinant of the worsening in acute
ischemic stroke. According to the NIHSS, LACI patients with
mild severity would be scored
7, whereas those with dense severity
would be scored >7. The intermediate frequency of worsening of LACI
between TACI and PACI in our study is consistent with the
suggestion of DeGraba et al.6
With respect to the comparison of the D and ND groups in each category, early abnormalities of the cranial CT were more frequent in the D group than in the ND group of patients with TACI. It has been reported that early abnormalities on CT, such as hypodensity, hyperdense middle cerebral artery sign, or mass effect are important predictors of deterioration.1 3 4 5 29 30 31 Given that it was the case only in TACI group, it could be speculated that edema (cytotoxic and vasogenic) is the important mechanism of clinical deterioration in TACI.5 Another difference between the D and ND groups in TACI patients was that the significant stenosis of the large artery was more frequent in the former group. Thrombus propagation or insufficient collateral blood supply might be another important mechanism in the worsening of TACI.4 5 However, because not all the patients in our study could undergo large-artery evaluation, this speculation must be reevaluated in future studies.
Except for the difference in the CNS score at entry, hematocrit was significantly lower in the D than the ND group of LACI patients. This was an unexpected result. There has been no such report previously in the study of deteriorating stroke. Because mean hematocrit was 40.0±4.3 in the D group and 41.8±4.0 in the ND group, which were both within normal range, it is hard to find the significance of this difference in LACI patients. There were no other variables that significantly differed between the D and ND groups of patients with LACI. The mechanism of worsening in LACI patients is unclear. Nakamura et al24 recently analyzed progressive motor deficits in 92 patients with lacunar infarction within 24 hours of onset in the internal capsule or the corona radiata. They found that the frequency of progression was 27%, similar to our finding, and that the blood glucose was higher, the motor deficits at entry were more severe, and the lesion volume on CT was larger in the progressing group than in stable group; some of these results are consistent but others are inconsistent with our results. Because the frequency of significant stenosis of large artery did not differ between the D and ND groups, the macrovascular mechanism in deterioration in LACI is unlikely, although a microvascular mechanism4 or branch atheromatous disease32 33 may play an important role in the LACI patients.
In the patients with POCI, cerebral atrophy was more severe and significant stenosis in vertebrobasilar arteries was more frequent in the D than in the ND group. These results imply that unlike in LACI, macrovascular mechanisms play an important role in the clinical worsening in POCI patients. We speculate that cerebral atrophy caused by longstanding hypoperfusion due to large-artery atherosclerosis might underlie the worsening in POCI patients. It has been suggested that large-artery atherosclerosis of extracranial or intracranial vertebrobasilar arteries is more frequent in posterior circulation infarcts than previously thought.34 35 36
Other reported variables concerning the neurological progression, such as body temperature,23 37 fibrinogen,23 blood glucose,24 38 39 diabetes mellitus,22 blood pressure,4 22 39 transient ischemic attack,14 and higher brain dysfunction,40 did not significantly differ between the D and ND groups in any category. Overall patients analysis would alter the results, but we did not perform such an analysis because we aimed to study the deteriorating ischemic stroke by stratifying patients into the 4 subgroups of the OCSP.
As expected, the prognosis was worse in the D group than the ND group in TACI, LACI, and POCI. More sophisticated markers might be needed to predict deterioration in acute ischemic stroke for future studies. There are some candidates for the predictable markers. Dávalos and Castillo and their coworkers21 41 42 have indicated that the blood and cerebrospinal fluid glutamate concentration increases in progressing stroke. In their neuroimaging recent study, Toni et al43 reported that flow analysis by transcranial Doppler ultrasonography can predict the improvement and deterioration of ischemic stroke. Recently developed diffusion-weighted and perfusion-weighted MRI44 and cerebral blood flow analysis with single-photon emission CT45 or xenon-enhanced CT46 will be useful in the study of deteriorating ischemic stroke as well.
In conclusion, the frequency of deterioration in acute ischemic stroke significantly differed among the OCSP subgroups, and it worsened the prognosis. Some factors could predict deterioration: early CT findings in TACI, large-artery atherosclerosis in TACI and POCI, and stroke severity in LACI. Future research to find more sophisticated markers appears to be needed.
| Acknowledgments |
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Received March 6, 2000; revision received May 23, 2000; accepted May 30, 2000.
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