Computerized Tomographic Findings In Stroke: A Sub-urban Hospital Experience.

Abstract

Stroke is a common neurological disorder and a second leading cause of death as well as a major cause of morbidity in Nigeria. It is thus important to find out the local pattern in a sub-urban tertiary hospital like ours to redefine the types as well as recent trends to inform the clinicians on improved management strategy. A retrospective study, spanning a period of 32 months (Sept. 2006-Jan2007,July 2007-Sept 2009). The patients were drawn from the Neurology and cardiology clinics of the hospital as well as referred patients from surrounding private health facility to the Radiology department with a working diagnosis of stroke like syndrome (stroke if vascular, and stroke mimic if non-vascular) for Brain CT. There was a male dominance in the study with a mean age of 56.1 years. Ischemic stroke was commoner (56.1 %) than the hemorrhagic type (Intracerebral Haemorrhage-27.6%). Multifocal infarcts occurred more frequently than the focal infarcts. Hypertension was the most frequently recorded predisposing disease. The Frontal lobe was involved most frequently than other cerebral lobes. It can be safely concluded that as much as it is possible CT brain should be done for all patients presenting in our hospitals with stroke like syndrome to improve patient management and reduce mortality and morbidity. Hypertension should be more aggressively controlled to reduce the burden of stroke in the society.