"Cardioembolic profile" in patients with ischemic stroke: data from the analysis of 1037 cases.

BACKGROUND

Basing on easily available clinical and instrumental data, we aimed to define an "atrial fibrillation profile" able to discriminate cases of stroke due to atrial fibrillation from cases due to atherothrombosis of large vessels or small-vessel disease.

METHODS

A total of 1037 consecutive patients with ischemic stroke were enrolled. Cases with undetermined stroke, rare causes, and cardioembolic sources of emboli other than atrial fibrillation were excluded from further analysis. Thus, 653 patients were evaluated, dividing them into 2 groups for comparison (164 with stroke due to atrial fibrillation and 489 with atherothrombotic/lacunar stroke). Clinical, echocardiography, and neuroradiologic data were considered to characterize such groups.

RESULTS

Atrial fibrillation and atherothrombotic-lacunar group presented a differential phenotypic profile. Binary multiple logistic regression identified age older than 75 years, female sex, left atrial dilation, cortical-subcortical cerebral index infarct, ischemic lesions in multiple vascular grounds, and spontaneous hemorrhagic transformation of brain infarction as significant predictors of cardioembolic stroke due to atrial fibrillation.

CONCLUSIONS

A simple profile, based on commonly available data, seems suitable to characterize patients with stroke due to atrial fibrillation. If further validated, it may be useful to identify patients with undetermined stroke (or other well-defined causes of stroke) at high risk of being affected by undetected subclinical paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, prompting further diagnostic work-up and with potential therapeutic implication.