Relationship between echocardiography results with stroke severity, hemorrhagic transformation and short-term prognosis in ischemic stroke

Purpose: Cardiac embolism is 20% in etiology of ischemic strokes. This rate is higher especially in young patients. Cardiac diseases are the most important risk factors in stroke. Therefore, the relationship between left cardiac measurements with stroke severity and prognosis was investigated. Materials and methods: Seventy ischemic stroke patients were included to the study. Disability was assessed by National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and modified Rankin scale (mRS). Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) was made within 72 hours. According to NIHSS, 0-7 mild, 8-16 moderate and over 16 severe stroke were grouped. mRS was evaluated as 0-2 good and over 2 poor state. Differences of NIHSS and mRS within one month were determined and grouped. The results were evaluated with SPSS Windows 21.0 version. Results: Seventy patients (30 females, 40 males) were included to study. The mean age was 66.73±11.62 years. Left ventricular diameters was end-diastolic 4.71±0.65, end-systolic 3.02±0.82, diastolic interventricular septum 1.11±0.18 and diastolic posterior wall 1.07±0.16 centimeters (cm). The ejection fraction was 55.58±8.02. Left atrium was 3.81±0.70 and aortic annulus was 3.05±0.49 cm diameter. Left ventricular systolic and end- diastolic diameter were higher in the groups with high NIHSS score (p=0.01). There was no difference between the other TTE results (p>0.05). There was no correlation between hemorrhagic transformation, NIHSS and mRS score with TTE measurements at 1 month (p>0.05). Conclusion: Initial stroke disability severity is associated with left ventricular systolic and end-diastolic diameter. There is no correlation between TTE results with prognosis and hemorrhagic transformation in ischemic stroke.