Introduction:
Heart failure with low ejection fraction (EF) is a known risk factor for stroke. Low EF is associated with increased risk of thrombus formation and is accompanied with 2 to 3 fold increased risk of stroke. This can happen even in the absence of atrial fibrillation.
Hypothesis:
Our hypothesis was that size of the stroke will be larger in patients with reduction in EF as compared with cardioembolic strokes in preserved EF. The worse the EF, the more stagnation of blood and poor cardiac output leading higher risk of thrombus formation. It’s also likely that the group with reduced EF form a larger thrombus leading to larger stroke as compared to the group with preserved EF.
Methods:
For our analysis, we retrospectively reviewed charts for 49 acute ischemic stroke patients without atrial fibrillation. We used transthoracic echocardiogram to determine the EF. There are 25 patients with preserved EF, cutoff > 50%. There were 24 patients in reduced EF group. Both groups were matched for age and cardiovascular risk factors. Infarct volume was manually calculated from T1 MRI using BrainLab software.
Results:
There is an inverse correlation between EF and infarct volume (r=-.283, p=.048) meaning patients with reduced EF had greater infarct volume. Median infarct volume is higher in reduced EF group (median volume = 36 cm
3
) compared to patients with preserved EF (median volume = 11 cm
3
) (p=.117).
Conclusions:
In our patient’s sample, there seems to be an inverse correlation between EF and size of stroke. Patients with reduced EF were associated with larger strokes. Larger studies need to be performed to establish a correlation.
Ultrasound Video Transformers for Cardiac Ejection Fraction Estimation
