A Preliminary Study of Gender Difference on Clinical Presentation of Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Single Center Study

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: To attain improvement in prognosis of patients suffering acute ischemic strokes (AIS), it is crucial to diagnose these swiftly and accurately. It is generally believed that female patients have a less favorable outcome, but there has not yet been sufficient data to confirm this opinion. The authors herein conducted a study to determine whether the symptoms of AIS differ between males and females. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on 322 consecutive patients who were diagnosed with AIS on the basis of MRI findings during the last two years. Demographic findings and clinical features were collected from emergency room records in order to evaluate gender differences. RESULTS: There were 148 female patients (45.8% of total) in our study, and the average age of affection for females was significantly higher than males. Our data did not achieve statistical significance; however, we observed the following tendencies the time from symptom onset to admission was delayed in female group; both traditional and nontraditional symptoms were more prevalent in the male group; and atypical symptoms were observed in the female group. CONCLUSION: No gender difference was observed in the incidence of acute ischemic stroke. However, the proportion of atypical symptoms was relatively higher in female patients. Factors resulting in delay clinical attention and contributing to the observed discrepancy between genders in AIS diagnosis should be validated and investigated further.