Timing and Causes of Death of Stroke Patients Died in Hospitalization

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the frequency distribution and causes of death according to number of days after stroke. METHOD: We reviewed in 158 cases of the stroke patients who had died in hospitalization from January 2000 to June 2002 by medical records retrospectively. We evaluated the correlations between the frequency of death and causes of death by frequency analysis. RESULTS: Mean age was 65.8 11.5 years old and average survival days after stroke were 16.2 24.1 days. The proportion of stroke subtypes were infarct (51.3%), intracranial hemorrhage (36.7%), and subarachnoid hemorrhage (12.0%). The frequency of death at 7 days and 30 days after stroke onset were 52.5% and 89.2%, respectively. The most frequent cause of death was respiratory arrest due to transtentorial herniation or brain stem lesion (48.1%), followed in frequency by pneumonia (22.2%), cardiac origin (10.8%), and vasospasm (6.3%). Within the first 30 days, the leading cause of death was respiratory arrest due to transtentorial herniation or brain stem lesion. After the first 30 days, the most frequent cause of death was pneumonia. CONCLUSION: The results of this study are valuable as basic data of mortality and causes of death after stroke during an acute stroke management and early rehabilitation.