Abstract

Aim

Acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has a high morbidity and mortality. We aimed to investigate the etiologic types, involved vascular territory, and mortality rates of patients with AIS in a Turkish cohort.

Materials and Methods

The archive records of a total of 403 patients with AIS were included retrospectively. Medical histories, neurological examinations, and death dates were collected through the hospital automation system. Based on the clinical data and imaging features, all patients were etiologically categorized according to the the Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment classification.

Results

The mean age was 72.3±12.4 years, with a slight female predominance at 50.4%. According to the Acute Stroke Treatment classification, the etiologic types of AIS patients were as follows: large-artery atherosclerosis at 50.6%, cardioembolism at 28.3%, small-vessel occlusion at 12.4%, undetermined etiology at 7.2%, and other determined etiology at 1.5%. Compared to the other vascular territories, the middle cerebral artery (MCA) was the most frequently involved territory (45.7%) and also had the highest mortality rate in older patients with AIS (p<0.001). When compared to inferior divisions, superior divisional infarctions had higher mortality for both right and left MCA strokes (p<0.001). Compared to male patients, female patients had significantly higher mortality rates at 0-30 days for internal cerebral artery stroke (p=0.048) and at all time periods for right MCA stroke (p=0.046).

Conclusion

We found that advanced age, being female, having right-sided and having superior divisional MCA infarctions were highly related to mortality in patients with AIS.