BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE To determine factors associated with ischemic stroke and stroke severity in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. METHODS Between 1992 and January 2005, 238 consecutive systemic lupus erythematosus patients with no history of stroke were followed-up longitudinally at the Maryland Lupus Clinic. Patients were monitored quarterly for a mean of 8 years after their sys...

Ischemic stroke is an uncommon cause of death among teenagers and young adults; however, the etiologies differ when compared to ischemic strokes in older individuals. Large-vessel atherosclerosis and small-vessel disease causing ischemic stroke are rare for the teenage population, while cervicocerebral arterial dissections account for up to 20% of ischemic strokes. Here, we present the case of ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Nonlacunar cerebral infarcts are presumed to be caused by thromboembolism from the heart or extracranial arteries, whereas lacunar infarcts are thought to be caused by small vessel disease. We investigated to what extent arterial calcifications differ between nonlacunar and lacunar ischemic strokes. METHODS We studied 820 consecutive patients with transient ischemic att...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Antithrombotic medications (anticoagulants and antiplatelets) are often withheld in the periprocedural period and after bleeding complications to limit the risk of new or recurrent bleeding. These medications are also stopped by patients for various reasons such as cost, side effects, or unwillingness to take medication. METHODS Patient records from the population-based...

Headache often accompanies acute ischemic stroke. Observational studies indicate that 15 to 40% of patients with acute ischemic stroke report headache in close temporal relation to the event. The onset headache is more often seen in posterior circulation strokes than in strokes in other vascular territories. Transient ischemic attacks (TIA) can also lead to headache. The pathophysiology of head...

Ischemic stroke is a heterogeneous disease and occurs due to a multitude of underlying pathologic processes. The brain is such an exquisitely sensitive reporting system that small infarctions, well below the size that causes clinical signs in other organ systems, can cause major disability in the brain. About 85% of all strokes are due to ischemia, and in the majority of ischemic stroke, the me...

BACKGROUND Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a significant risk factor for ischemic strokes, and making a robust risk stratification scheme would be important. Few studies have examined whether nonlinear dynamics of the heart rate could predict ischemic strokes in AF. We examined whether a novel complexity measurement of the heart rate variability called multiscale entropy (MSE) was a useful risk str...

BACKGROUND Although the risk factors of ischemic strokes are well defined, there is slight information about their relations with the etiologies of ischemic strokes. This study investigated the distribution of ischemic stroke risk factors and their connections to diverse etiologies of cerebrovascular attack (CVA) and specific ischemic regions of brain. METHODS In this cross sectional study, w...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Blacks have an excess burden of stroke compared with whites; however, data comparing ischemic stroke subtypes among the 2 groups are limited and typically involve relative frequencies. The objective of this study is to compare the incidence rates of ischemic stroke subtypes between blacks and whites within a large, representative, biracial population. METHODS The Greate...