Abstract W P373: Symptom Severity of Recent Stroke and Risk of Recurrent Vascular Events

• Published in: Stroke (1970) 2015-02, Vol.46 (suppl_1)
• Main Authors: Park, Jong-Ho, Ovbiagele, Bruce
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0039-2499; 1524-4628
• DOI: 10.1161/str.46.suppl_1.wp373

Abstract only Background: Symptom severity of an index stroke is a powerful prognosticator of short term outcomes, especially functional status and mortality. It is widely recognized that stroke patients with greater initial symptom severity tend to have more unfavorable prognoses. However, little is relatively known about the possible association of symptom severity and risk of recurrent vascular events after a recent index stroke, particularly over the longer term. On one hand, stroke patients with greater baseline symptom severity may be at higher risk for recurrent vascular events due to reactive depression or impaired mobility leading to overall poorer regimen adherence; while on the other hand stroke patients that recover with minimal deficit or no deficit may be more vulnerable to a future events due to underlying unstable pathophysiology (i.e. ongoing thrombosis-thrombolysis). Methods: We reviewed the dataset of a multicenter trial involving 3680 recent non-cardioembolic stroke patients aged ≥35 years and followed for 2 years. Independent associations of stroke severity (as measured by National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS] score) with recurrent stroke (primary outcome) and stroke/coronary heart disease (CHD)/vascular death (secondary outcome) were analyzed. NIHSS score was analyzed as a dichotomous (