Volume : 7, Issue : 10, October - 2018

Homocysteine: An instigating factor for ischemic stroke

Surbhi, Himanshu Gupta

Abstract :

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Aim: to find the relationship between serum homocysteine levels and risk of ischemic stroke.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Material and Method: A Hospital based observational study was conducted, in which 50 ischemic stroke patients and 30 controls were included. Socio-demographic profile, history, physical and radiological examination, serum homocysteine levels were recorded and analyzed by using descriptive statistical methods.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Results: Majority of cases and control were male and were in age group of 50-60 years. Homocysteine levels were observed to be significantly (p=0.0001) higher among cases (21.69&plusmn;6.33) compared to controls (11.84&plusmn;3.88). Serum homocysteine levels are having good sensitivity (80%) and specificity (76.7%) in predicting ischemic stroke.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;line-height:200%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:200%;font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,&quot;serif&quot;">Conclusion: Serum homocysteine levels are good predictor of ischemic stroke. But, further studies are needed to search for exact causal role of increased homocysteine in ischemic stroke patients with larger sample size.<o:p></o:p></span></p>