International Journal of Advances in Medicine | July-September 2016 | Vol 3 | Issue 3 Page 755 International Journal of Advances in Medicine Gnanamoorthy K et al. Int J Adv Med. 2016 Aug;3(3):755-758 http://www.ijmedicine.com pISSN 2349-3925 | eISSN 2349-3933 Research Article Comparison of fasting lipid profile in ischemic and haemorrhagic stroke patients of a tertiary care hospital Kothai Gnanamoorthy 1 , Prasanna Karthik Suthakaran 2 *, Kannan Rajendran 2 , Keerthi Deepak 3 INTRODUCTION A stroke, or cerebrovascular accident, had been defined as the abrupt onset of a neurological deficit that is attributable to a focal vascular cause. WHO has defined stroke as a “rapidly developed clinical signs of focal disturbance of cerebral function, lasting more than 24 hours or leading to death, with no apparent cause other than vascular origin”. 1 Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in India. The estimated adjusted prevalence rate of stroke range varied between 84 - 262/100,000 in rural and 334 – 424 /100,000 in urban areas. The incidence rate varies 119 – 145/100,000 based on the recent population based studies. The mortality rates also varied from 24.5% to 42% across various centres in India. 2 This shows the great magnitude of the ABSTRACT Background: Stroke is one of the leading causes of death and disability in India. Dyslipidaemia as a risk factor for cerebrovascular accidents have been explored in various studies and have been definitely established with the findings of many landmark trials. The relation of circulating cholesterol to ischemic stroke does not resemble its well-known relation to coronary heart disease and hence needs to be explored in detail. Methods: 72 patients with a first ever diagnosis of cerebrovascular disease whose onset was within the preceding three days were enrolled in the study. Lipid profile abnormalities were documented in these patients and they were followed up for 30 days. Results: The mean age was 60.7 ± 11.0 years in the ischemic group and 52.3±10.2 years in the haemorrhagic group (P=0.004). The mean total cholesterol (TC) levels and the mean LDL – cholesterol (LDL – C) levels were higher in the ischemic stroke patients and these differences were statistically very significant. (183.7± 34.5 versus 148.5±30.6, P = 0.0002, 118.7±26.7 versus 81.4±22.0, P = 0.0001) The differences in the mean triglycerides (TG), mean HDL – cholesterol (HDL – C) and mean VLDL – cholesterol (VLDL – C) levels were not statistically significant between the two groups. Conclusions: In this study, the mean TC and LDL – C levels were significantly much higher in the ischemic stroke patients when compared to patients with haemorrhagic stroke. The findings from this small study suggest that there may be a limit to the lowering of LDL – Cholesterol levels. Some studies have shown that lower levels are associated with increased risk of haemorrhagic stroke rather than ischemic stroke, though conclusive evidence is still lacking. Keywords: Stroke, Cerebrovascular accident, Lipid profile, LDL - C, Ischemic stroke, Haemorrhagic stroke 1 Department of Medicine, SRM Medical College and Hospital, SRM Campus, Potheri, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India 2 Department of Medicine, Saveetha Medical College Hospital, Saveetha University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India 3 Department of Medicine, Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute, Mangadu, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Received: 24 June 2016 Accepted: 12 July 2016 *Correspondence: Dr. Prasanna Karthik Suthakaran, E-mail: kartpress@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2349-3933.ijam20162530