Association of Serum Folic Acid with Ischemic Stroke HASAN ZAHIDUR RAHMAN1, MD. RAFIQUL ISLAM2, MONIRUZAMMAN BHUYIAN1,MASUD RANA3, RASHED IMAM4, ABU JAFAR MD SALAUDDIN4, KHAIRUL KABIR PATWARY4, MUHAMMAD

Stroke is defined by World Health Organization (WHO) as rapidly developing clinical signs of focal (or global) disturbance of cerebral function, with symptoms lasting 24 h or longer, or leading to death, with no apparent cause other than of non-traumatic vascular origin1.Stroke is the third most common cause of death in the developed world after heart disease and cancer, after the age of 40 and is the most common cause of adult physical disability2. Prevalence of stroke in Bangladesh is 0.30%, and the ratio of male: female patient’s was 3.44:2.413. It poses a major socio-economic challenge in the occupational and neuro-rehabilitational programmes for survivors4. Among numerous risk factors for stroke, only twothirds of all strokes can be attributed to known causal risk factors. One of them is elevated plasma homocysteine concentration resulting from its metabolic enzyme deficiencies or deficiencies of vitamin B6, B12 and folic acid 1. Approximately twothirds of the cases of elevated homocysteine have Association of Serum Folic Acid with Ischemic Stroke HASAN ZAHIDUR RAHMAN1, MD. RAFIQUL ISLAM2, MONIRUZAMMAN BHUYIAN1,MASUD RANA3, RASHED IMAM4, ABU JAFAR MD SALAUDDIN4, KHAIRUL KABIR PATWARY4, MUHAMMAD SALAH UDDIN4