A study of clinical profile and risk factors in Ischemic stroke with special reference to serum homocysteine and lipid profile: a cross sectional observation study -

Background:  Ischemic stroke (IS) is one of the major reasons of disability and death throughout the world. Every year, around 4.4 million people die because of IS all around the world . The objective was to study clinical profile and risk factors in patients with IS and to find out the association of ischemic stroke with serum lipid and serum homocysteine level. Methods: A cross sectional observation study was performed on 64 IS patients after dividing in to group 1 (n=10, age 40 years) from December 2008 to November 2010. A detailed history, risk factors along with quantitative estimation of serum homocysteine, total cholesterol, triglyceride, low density lipoprotein and very low density lipoprotein was performed. Results:  The most common premonitory symptoms were headache (70% versus 31.48%), giddiness/vertigo (10% versus 24.07%) and tingling/numbness (40% versus 16.66%) in group 1 and group 2 respectively. Most of the patients were having stage 1 hypertension in Group 1 (50%) whereas in group 2 (53.65%) most of the patients were stage 2 hypertensive. The most common risk factors for IS were hypertensive (60% versus 90.65%) followed by diabetes mellitus (0% versus 62.9%) and transient ischemic attack (0% versus 42.55%) in group 1 and group 2 respectively. Most of the patients in were having moderate hyperhomocysteinemia in Group 1 (40%) and group 2 (24.05%) and only 10% and 11.10% of the patients were having mild hyperhomocysteinemia. In group 1 and Group 2, raised cholesterol, raised triglyceride, raised LDL and low HDL was recorded in 30% versus 42.55%, 30%  versus 31.48%, 40% versus 68.45% and 60% versus 27.75% of patients respectively. Conclusions:  High level of homocysteine and abnormal lipid profile mainly increased LDL and decreased HDL -C level is associated with increased risk of ischemic stroke.