Abstract

Background:Stroke was the second most frequent cause of death worldwide in
2012,accounting for 7.1 million deaths. as data availablefrom Indian subcontinent is
scrace in relation to Hyper homocysteinemia as a potential risk factor in ischemic stroke
The present study is designed to measure theplasma homocysteine levels in patients
presenting with ischemic strokes and correlate with the levels in age and sex matched
controls.
Materials and Methods: This study is a case - control prospective study. The present
study was done on 80 patients with ischemic stroke admitted in local area hospital 30 –
35 age and sex matched controls were recruited for the study. Plasma fasting total
homocysteine (tHcy) levels were measured by chemiluminiscence immunoassay.
Students‘t’ test and chi-square test were used to analyse data.
Results: The total homocysteine (tHcy) were significantly higher in patients with stroke
compared to controls (19.94±4.73 Vs 7.85±4.56, p-value is <0.001). The tHcy levels were
significantly high in smokers compared to non-smokers (31.11±2.44 Vs 12.22±3.63, pvalue
is <0.05), patients with hypertension compared to normotensive patients
(32.09±1.04 Vs 15+3.21, p-value is <0.02), patients with diabetes mellitus compared to
patients not having diabetesmellitus (23.22±4.39 Vs 12.87±2.99, p-value is <0.05),
patients with dyslipidemia compared to patients not having dyslipidemia (31.12±3.99 Vs
12.93±2.23, p-value is <0.05). Patients with no risk factors compared to controls
(14.11±4.38Vs 8.76±1.25).
Conclusion: Hyper homocysteinemia emerged as an important risk factor for ischemic
stroke. A strong positive correlation was also observed between hypertension, diabetes
mellitus, smoking dyslipidemia and tHcy levelsin thepresent study.