Stroke; a journal of cerebral circulation
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Comparative Study
Elevated cardiac troponin I and relationship to persistence of electrocardiographic and echocardiographic abnormalities after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Cardiac injury persistence after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is not well described. We hypothesized that post-aSAH cardiac injury, detected by elevated cardiac troponin I (cTnI), is related to aSAH severity and associated with electrocardiographic and structural echocardiographic abnormalities that are persistent. ⋯ Cardiac injury is incrementally worse with increasing aSAH severity and associated with persistent QTc prolongation and ventricular arrhythmias. Regional wall motion abnormalities and depressed ejection fraction persist to some degree in the majority of those affected.
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Therapeutic hypothermia may be useful in various circumstances including stroke. However, core body temperature is normally tightly regulated. Even mild hypothermia in conscious subjects thus provokes vigorous thermoregulatory defenses which are potentially harmful in fragile patients. ⋯ Most opioids only slightly impair thermoregulatory defenses, but meperidine is considerably more effective than equipotent doses of other opioids. The central alpha-2 agonists clonidine and dexmedetomidine are also useful. However, the best overall approach to inducing thermal tolerance appears to be a combination of buspirone and meperidine, which reduces the core temperature triggering shivering to about 33.5 degrees C in doses that maintain adequate ventilation.
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Comparative Study
Body mass index and stroke mortality by smoking and age at menopause among Korean postmenopausal women.
The association between body mass index and mortality caused by subtypes of stroke among postmenopausal women in terms of smoking status and age at menopause remains controversial. ⋯ In this prospective study, obesity raised the risks of total stroke mortality and hemorrhagic stroke mortality among Korean menopausal women. It was more evident with women who experienced menopause at age <50. The obese group of ever smokers was at an increased risk of ischemic stroke mortality.
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Letter Comparative Study
Pre-tissue plasminogen activator blood pressure levels and risk of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage.
From small pilot studies, uncontrolled pretreatment systolic blood pressure >185 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure >110 mm Hg in patients with acute ischemic stroke were introduced in the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke rtPA Stroke Study as a contraindication for thrombolysis. We sought to determine if pretreatment blood pressure protocol violations in patients with acute ischemic stroke receiving intravenous tissue plasminogen activator are related to the subsequent risk of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH). ⋯ These data support current guidelines advising not to use intravenous tissue plasminogen activator when pretreatment blood pressure exceeds the prespecified thresholds by showing that blood pressure protocol violations are independently associated with a higher likelihood of sICH.