Cerebrovascular risk factors in an elderly Austrian population: first year results of the Austrian Stroke Prevention Study (ASPS).

During the first year the Austrian Stroke Prevention Study enrolled 599 volunteers without clinical signs or symptoms of cerebrovascular disease aged 50 to 70 years. Study participants were randomly selected from the official register of the city of Graz. The rate of positive response was 26.9 percent. All subjects underwent an extensive risk factor screening with Duplex scanning of the carotid arteries obtained from a subset of 176 individuals. The prevalence of well-documented cerebrovascular risk factors was 40.6% for arterial hypertension, 35.4% for cardiac disease, 8.5% for diabetes mellitus und 3% for elevated haematocrit. The less well-documented cerebrovascular risk factors dyslipidemia, overweight, physical inactivity, hyperfibrinogenemia and smoking were noted in 75%, 33.7%, 27.2%, 14.9% and 12.2% of subjects, respectively. Multiple well-documented risk factors were noted in 23.7% of the examined volunteers. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed body mass index (p < 0.0001) and age (p < 0.0001) as independent predictors of the frequency of well-documented risk factors observed in any individual. Atherosclerotic carotid disease occurred in 61.9% of study participants investigated by Doppler sonography and was significantly associated with age (p < 0.00001), life-time tobacco consumption (p < 0.0001) and the concentration of apolipoprotein B (p < 0.05). This study demonstrates high prevalence rates of vascular risk factors in an elderly Austrian community. Implications for stroke prevention result from the conjunction of overweight and frequency of risk factors noted in any study participant, as well as from the relationship of carotid atherosclerosis to smoking and dyslipidemia.