Quratulain Nauman Shaikh, Adeel Ali Memon, Ayeesha Kamran Kamal.
Association of hypertension with stroke recurrence may depend on ischaemic stroke subtype.
J Pak Med Assoc Jan ;64(11):1327-8.

Why is this study Important? Although well recognized as the major risk factor for Ischaemic strokes (IS), hypertension (HTN) has not been well considered as a risk factor for recurrence of ischaemic stroke. This study intended to discover whether HTN contributes to the recurrence of certain subtypes of Ischaemic strokes Who were the participants? Data was taken from the China National Stroke Registry and one year follow up data for stroke recurrence was calculated. The registry is a nationwide, hospital based registry which enrolls patients within 14 days after stroke onset in 1 of 132 participating hospitals in China. The participating hospitals included 100 tertiary and 32 secondary urban hospitals, selected from 27 provinces and 4 municipalities in Mainland China. The study participants required a WHO stroke definition for stroke diagnosis. Trial of Org 10172 in acute stroke treatment criteria were used to categorize the sub-types of all Ischaemic strokes (TOAST). All stroke patients or their proxies were contacted at 3, 6, and 12 months after incident stroke by telephone How Ischaemic stroke subtypes were classified and HTN were measured? According to the TOAST criteria, patients with acute ischaemic stroke were further classified as: Large-artery atherosclerosis (LAA), small-artery occlusion (SAO), cardio-embolism (CE), stroke of other determined pathogenesis, and stroke of undetermined pathogenesis. This subtype of Ischaemic stroke classification was mainly based on the symptoms of patient combined with the results of one or more diagnostic tests. Hypertension was defined when the blood pressure was greater than or equal to 140/90 mmHg on repetitive measurements during the stay at hospital or patient was on anti-hypertensive medication.

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