The association of antiphospholipid antibodies with ischaemic stroke and myocardial infarction in young and their correlation: a preliminary study.

ABSTRACT

AIM: The possible etiological role of antiphospholipid antibodies (APA) in thrombotic events on arterial side has become subject of interest. The present study was undertaken to determine the association and possible etiological role of APA in young Indian patients with acute ischaemic stroke and myocardial infarction (MI). MATERIAL AND METHODS: Forty six patients < 40 years of age including 22 with ischaemic stroke (excluding those with rheumatic heart disease and SLE), 24 with an acute MI and 21 age and sex matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. All the patients and the controls were tested for the presence of lupus anticoagulant (LA) by a lupus sensitive activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) and kaolin clotting time (KCT) and anti-caridiolipin antibodies (aCL) of IgM and IgG types using an ELISA technique. RESULTS: The screening tests for LA with APTT and KCT were negative in all the patients and the normal controls. In the stroke subgroup 18.18% patients (4/22) and in MI subgroup 4.16% (1/24) patients had raised aCL titers with statistically significant association only for stroke subgroup (p=0.0201) and not for MI subgroup. Significantly higher proportion of aCL positive cases were found in patients without any risk factor for atherosclerosis (4/12), compared to patients with one or more risk factor for atherosclerosis (1/34), p=0.001. CONCLUSION: Younger patients without identifiable risk factors for atheroscerosis presenting with stroke, are more likely to have an underlying antiphospholipid syndrome (APLS) as the etiology, and should be screened for it. No such association however was observed for MI patients.