Abstract WP94: Higher Mortality in Slow Blood Pressure Droppers: Blood Pressure Trajectory Groups of 1-Year After Acute Ischemic Stroke
Introduction: Although the effect of blood pressure in post-stroke outcome is well recognized, the long-term time course of BP following acute ischemic stroke and it’s influence to outcomes have not been well elucidated. Method: From a multicenter prospective registry of acute ischemic stroke patients, a total of 5,514 patients with measurement of systolic blood pressure (SBP) in more than 2 of 7 prespecified time points up to 1 year after symptom onset were analyzed. The patients were grouped according to longitudinal SBPs of each patient using a group-based trajectory model, and number of groups were determined by the optimal delta-Bayesian Information Criterion. Outcome measures, which were stroke recurrence, mortality and composite of each events along with myocardial infarction were prospectively collected up to 1 year after symptom onset. Results: Patients were categorized into four groups according to their SBP trajectories: low (27.0%), moderate (59.5%), persistently high (1.2%), and slowly dropping (12.4%). After adjustment for pre-determined covariates, there were higher risk of stroke recurrence in persistently high SBP group (hazard ratio (HR), 2.28 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.01-5.12]). Mortality was higher only in the slowly dropping SBP group (HR, 1.50 [95% CI, 1.09-2.05]). Composite events were higher in both persistently high (HR, 1.96 [95% CI, 1.02-3.75]) and slowing dropping (HR, 1.54 [95% CI, 1.18-2.00]) SBP groups. Conclusion: There were a group of patterns in long-term longitudinal SBP changes after acute ischemic stroke. Especially, slow BP droppers might have a distinct nature with higher mortality and would be a target for future investigations.