Abstract
The common femoral artery (CFA) of 90 stroke patients was examined by B-mode ultrasonography. Results showed that 50 patients had cerebral infarction (CI) and the others had with cerebral hemorrhage (CH) . The degrees of plaque and stenosis from the ultrasonography were evaluated. The patients were divided into four classes according to the degree ; and the relation with age, sex, post onset time, side of hemiplegia, ankle pressure index (API), risk factors (i.e. hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia), and clinical categories in case of CI were studied. Fourty-seven out of 90 patients (52.2%) showed atherosclerotic lesions. From these 47, 34 (68.0%) were CI patients, compared to 13 (32.5%) CA patients. This showed that the frequency and the degree of atherosclerosis were significantly greater in CI patients than in CA patients (p<0.001) . Although 88.2% of the low API patients (API<1.0) had atherosclerotic lesions and showed a significant correlation (p<0.01), 46.0% of the normal API patients also had atherosclerotic lesions. Whereas atherosclerosis had some relation to age, it showed no significant correlation with sex, post onset time, side of hemiplesia and clinical categories of CI.
In terms of risk factors, hypertension and hyperlipidemia were strongly related to atherosclerotic lesions, but diabetes was not. The correlation between the risk factors and atherosclerosis was significantly higher in CI patients than in CA patients. These results suggest that when CI patients are treated, the possibility of arteriosclerotic obliterans must be kept in mind, and that ultrasonography is effective for the early detection of atherosclerotic lesions of CFA.
