Acute stroke outcome: effects of stroke type and risk factors

Abstract

We studied 925 consecutive patients hospitalised with acute stroke to determine how stroke type, age, gender and risk factors influence acute, in‐hospital outcome. Stroke types included carotid territory cortical or large subcortical infarction (52%), vertebrobasilar infarction (12%), lacunar infarction (11%), intracerebral haemorrhage (16%), and subarachnoid haemorrhage (9%). Mean age (mean ± 1 SD) was 66 ± 15 years, but patients with cerebral infarction were older than those with cerebral haemorrhage. The prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus and cardiac disease increased with age across all stroke types, while the prevalence of smoking decreased with age. Mortality was 19% overall..