Stroke In Young In Southern Rajasthan: A Hospital Based Study

Abstract

Background:In recent years there has been an exponential increase in number of stroke patients. Against the classical dictum classifying stroke as a disease of elderly, world has noticed shift in paradigm asday by day there is increase in cases of young stroke especially in developing nations.Objective: Young stroke is altogether a different entity from its adult counterpart. We didn’t came across any study specifically exploring stroke in young in this part of Rajasthan. We tend to determine clinical and demographic variablesof young stroke and also looked for possible underlying aetiologies in our study.Method:This was a cross-sectional single centre tertiary care centre hospital based study of all young stroke patients who met inclusion and exclusion criteria and presented to our department over a period of eighteen months from October 2018 till March 2020.Results:Mean age of our study group was 38.8 years with male preponderance. Sixty five percent had ischemic stroke, most common aetiology was atherosclerotic.Twenty six percent had haemorrhagic stroke. CVST(Cerebral Venous Sinus Thrombosis) was diagnosed in eighteen(9%) patients withfemale preponderance. Most common presenting symptom was hemiparesis in (54%)patients. Mean triglyceride and LDL levels were 152.2+78.6mg/dl and 111.3+40.2mg/dl respectively. Conclusion: Globally young stroke is increasing at an alarming rate. Increasing stroke disability in this economically productive section can lead to significant social and economic recession worldwide. Different population groups have different incidence and underlying aetiologies, so there is a need of population-based studies to guide management plan.