PEOPLE who have had a stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA or mini stroke) are at high risk of suffering a similar episode within five years, research has found.
A STUDY showed that these patients have an almost 10 per cent risk of dying, suffering a repeat stroke, heart attack or being admitted to long-term care within a year.
Meanwhile after five years, the risk of these events occurring was double that of individuals of the same age and sex who had not suffered a previous stroke or TIA. The research, carried out at Canada’s Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) using data from the Ontario Stroke Registry, looked at around 34,000 patients discharged from hospital following a stroke or TIA from 2003 to 2011. All those who, within 90 days after their discharge from hospital, died, had another stroke or TIA, a heart attack, were hospitalised for any reason, or were admitted to long-term care were then discounted – amounting to more than 10,000 patients, or 30 per cent – as in Canada those patients are generally provided with close follow-up care during that period. The records for the remaining patients – about 24,000 – were then examined over the following years, with the discovery that 9.3 per cent of them had a repeat stroke or TIA, died, had a heart attack or were admitted to long-term care in the first year after this highest-risk period was over. Death was the most common of the events, occurring in 5.1 per cent of patients in the first year. Among those who survived the first year, the event rate remained at 5 per cent for each of the following four years. Dr Richard Swartz, director of the University of Toronto stroke program and leader of the study, said the high long-term risk findings were “surprising”. “We now need to identify ways to determine which people, among those who have made it through the riskiest period, remain most at risk for serious events so we can develop appropriate preventive interventions,” he added.