Correlation between vertebral artery hypoplasia and posterior circulation ischemic stroke / 国际脑血管病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objectve To investigate the correlation between vertebral artery hypoplasia (VAH) and posterior circulation ischemic stroke (PCIS).Methods The patients who were diagnose as ischemic cerebral stroke and underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging and cervical three-dimensional contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography from March 2012 to March 2014 were enrolled.VAH was defined as vertebral artery diameter ＜ 2 mm and thin or did not develop.They were divided into either an anterior circulation ischemic stroke (ACIS) group or a PCIS group according to the sites of disease.The clinical and imaging data were compared.Results A total of 137 patients were enrolled,including 96 patients (70.07％) with ACIS and 41 (29.93％) with PCIS.Thirty-seven patients were (27.01％) diagnosed as VAH,including 13 on the left and 24 on the right; 14 females and 23 males.The detection rate of females (29.17％) was higher than that of males (25.84％),but the difference was not statistically significant (x2 =0.175; P =0.676).There were significant differences in TOAST classificanon (x2 =6.710; P =0.035),combined with ischemic heart disease (14.6％ vs.61.5％ ; x2 =25.262,P ＜ 0.001) and VAH (58.5％ vs.13.5％ ; x2 =9.505,P ＜0.001) between the PCIS group and the ACIS group.Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that VAH was independently correlated with PCIS (odds ratio 10.788,95％ confidence interval 3.863-30.131; P ＜ 0.001),and combined with ischemic heart disease was independently correlated with ACIS (odds ratio 0.082,95％ confidence interval 0.024-0.278; P ＜ 0.001).Conclusions VAH is not rare in patients with ischemic stroke.It may promote the occurrence of PCIS.