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Coexisting Large and Small Vessel Disease in Patients with Ischemic Stroke of Undetermined Cause
European Neurology, 08/21/2012
Clinical Article
Chatzikonstantinou A et al. – Aortic plaques are common in patients with stroke of undetermined cause. If so, small vessel disease (SVD) and Large artery atherosclerosis (LAA) are often coexisting, which demonstrates the close link of macro– and microangiopathy, at least in cases of severe risk factors of atherosclerosis.
Methods- The authors investigated 71 consecutive patients (48 men, mean age 64.2 ± 13 years) with ischemic stroke of undetermined cause according to the ASCO classification, who received ECG–triggered CT angiography for best available atherosclerotic plaque detection in the aorta.
- Aortic atherosclerotic plaques were detected in 54 patients (76.1%).
- The presence of SVD significantly correlated with the presence of aortic plaques (p<0.001), as well as LAA (p<0.001) and risk factors such as arterial hypertension (p = 0.032) and diabetes mellitus (p=0.017).
