RESUMO
Diabetes, is an important risk factor for crebrovascular lesions. Studies obviously demonstrate a higher prevalence, worse prognosis, more relapses and complications and higher mortality rate due to stroke in diabetic patients. This risk is independent from other risk factors, and various studies such as topography of stroke lesions conducted on diabetic patients showed controversial results. This study was conducted to compare the prevalence of location and the number of thrombotic stroke lesions in diabetic and nondiabetic patients in Rafsanjan, Iran. This cross - sectional study was conducted on patients suffering from thrombotic stroke, through the convenience nonrandom sampling. Sixty diabetic cases and 60 nondiabetic controls matched for demographic factors and risk factors of stroke, the MRI images of study participants were analyzed by using EPI6 software. 56.7% of samples were female and the average age of patients was 67.5 years. The majortly of samples [66.7%] had history of hypertension. All together 99 vascular lesions in diabetic patients and 118 vascular lesions in nondiabetic patients were observed. The number of lesions had been increased by increasing patients' age significantly. In diabetic patients parietal lobe, occipital lobe and brain stem and in nondiabetic patients parietal, frontal and temporal lobes were the most frequent location of lesions respectively. The majority of these patients [70%] had more than two vascular lesions. The number and the site of cerebrovascular lesions showed no significant difference between diabetic and nondiabetic patients. There was no significant difference between diabetic and nondiabetic patients concerning the number and site of cerebrovascular lesions. However, trombotic stroke in diabetic patients with hypertension had a specific clinical pattern, with a low progress but a sudden appearance and high rate of morbidity and mortality. It can be concluded that stroke in these patients should be diagnosed and treated rapidly