Prevalence of Hypertriglyceridemia and Risk Factors of Ischemic Versus Hemorrhagic Stroke

Abstract

Objective: To find the prevalence of hypertriglyceridemia in ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes and to assess the risk factors associated with them. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Medical OPD/ Emergency, PAF Hospital Mushaf, Sargodha over a period of six months from Nov-2010 to May-2011. All patients of either gender diagnosed as having stroke, with hyper dense or hypo dense area on CT scan brain and of age more than 30 years were included in the study. Patients on anti-hyperlipidemic drugs, with previous history of stroke, having blood disorders, like hemophilia and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and, on warfarin therapy were excluded from the study. Results: 203 patients were enrolled in the study. Out of these 203 patients 138(68%) were males, 65 (32%) were females. 127(62.6%) stroke patients had hypertriglyceridemia. In multivariate analysis, hypertriglyceridemia was found to be the only risk factor associated with ischemic stroke adjusting for all the other variables. It was found that patients with hypertriglyceridemia had 3.24 times higher odds of having ischemic stroke (P-value=0.017). Conclusion: Hypertriglyceridemia was found in majority of the patients with stroke. Furthermore, it was found to be an independent risk factor of ischemic stroke.