Background: Though atherosclerosis is generally regarded as a risk factor for stroke, its quantitative assessment in patients with stroke has not yet been reported. Recently, the ankle brachial index (ABI) has been receiving increasing attention as a noninvasive measurement of atherosclerosis. In this study, we investigated ABI to determine the degree of atherosclerosis in patients with stroke.
Methods: ABI was measured in 114 patients who had suffered a stroke, and the significance of differences between the ABI of the stroke subgroups and that of the normal group was investigated. The correlation of ABI with the degree of cerebral artery stenosis was also investigated.
Results: There was no significant difference in ABI between the hemorrhagic groups and the normal group, but in the infarction group (p = 0.0002) ABI was significantly less than the normal group. ABI was significantly correlated with the degree of stenosis in the intracranial internal carotid artery and middle cerebral artery (p < 0.0001, respectively).
Conclusions: A strong relationship between ischemic stroke and atherosclerosis was demonstrated quantitatively by ABI measurement. A decrease in ABI may be a risk factor for ischemic stroke.
Copyright 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel