Smitha Kalarikkal Satheesan 1 , Shibu Thadathil Sreedharan 2 , Parvathi Krishna Warrier 3
BACKGROUND Stroke is a clinically-defined syndrome of rapidly developing symptoms or signs of focal loss of cerebral function with no apparent cause other than that of vascular origin. A previously unrecognised risk factor for stroke, which is prevalent and modifiable and may be causal, is elevated plasma homocysteine. To establish a correlation whether homocysteinaemia has any effect on incidence of young with stroke on our wards, we decided to undertake a cross-sectional observational study of patients admitted in the medical wards with first ever-ischaemic stroke. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was conducted in the Department of Biochemistry, Government Medical College, Calicut. 50 patients of age group 20-60 years, admitted to General Medicine Department with diagnosis of ischaemic stroke either clinically or proven by investigations were selected for the study. 50 age matched normal individuals also included. The period of study was one year. Homocysteine enzyme immunoassay was done by ELISA. The results were analysed statistically using Pearson chi-square test. RESULTS Serum homocysteine showed significant increase in patients than in the normal individuals. Mean fasting plasma homocysteine also showed statistically significant difference in both groups. Statistically significant positive correlation was present between plasma Homocysteine and MCV values collected from the subjects. CONCLUSIONS Our study supports that elevated levels of homocysteine might be an independent and modifiable risk factor for stroke in young in our country. Young patients presenting with ischaemic stroke need to be investigated for homocysteine level and treatment modalities to reduce homocysteine levels may help in preventing recurrence of ischaemic stroke.
