Six-Month Outcome of Transient Ischemic Attack and Its Mimics.

Although the risk of recurrent cerebral ischemia is higher after a transient ischemic attack (TIA), there is limited data on the outcome of TIA mimics. The goal of this study is to compare the 6-month outcome of patients with negative and positive diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) TIAs (DWI-neg TIA vs. DWI-pos TIA) and also TIA mimics. We prospectively studied consecutive patients with an initial diagnosis of TIA in our tertiary stroke centers in a 2-year period. Every included patient had an initial magnetic resonance (MR) with DWI and one-, three-, and six-month follow-up visits. The primary outcome was defined as the composition of intracerebral hemorrhage, ischemic stroke, TIA, coronary artery disease, and death. Out of 269 patients with the initial diagnosis of TIA, 259 patients (mean age 70.5 ± 15.0 [30-100] years old, 56.8% men) were included in the final analysis. Twenty-one (8.1%, 95% confidence interval [CI] 5.1-12.1%) patients had a composite outcome event within the six-month follow-up. Five (23.8%) and 13 (61.9%) composite outcome events occurred in the first 30 and 90 days, respectively. Among patients with DWI-neg TIA, the one- and six-month ischemic stroke rate was 1.5 and 4.6%, respectively. The incidence proportion of composite outcome event was significantly higher among patients who had the diagnosis of DWI-neg TIA compared with those who had the diagnosis of TIA mimics (12.2 vs. 2.1%-relative risk 5.9; 95% CI, 1.4-25.2). In our univariable analysis among patients with DWI-neg TIA and DWI-pos TIA, age ( = 0.017) was the only factor that was significantly associated with the occurrence of the composite outcome. Our study indicated that the overall six-month rate of the composite outcome among patients DWI-neg TIA, DWI-pos TIA, and TIA mimics were 12.2, 9.7, and 2.1%, respectively. Age was the only factor that was significantly associated with the occurrence of the composite outcome.