Contribution of microbleeds to predicting stroke recurrences: differences among stroke types

Abstract

Cerebral microbleeds (MBs) are the surrogate markers of recurrent strokes. However, the types of recurrent strokes associated with deep MBs are still unknown. We investigated the contribution of deep MBs to stroke recurrences in patients with the past histories of deep intracerebral hemorrhages (deep-ICHs) or lacunar infarctions (LIs). As a result, the incidences of all types of strokes, deep-ICHs and LIs presenting as stroke recurrences were significantly larger in LI patients with deep MBs than in those without. However, there was no significant difference between deep-ICH patients with and without MBs in terms of incidences of stroke recurrences. The investigations revealed no significant relationship between deep MBs and athero-thrombotic infarctions, cardio-embolic infarctions or lobar-ICHs presenting stroke recurrences. There are differences among patients with the past histories of strokes in the contributions of MBs to stroke recurrences. And there are differences among recurrent stroke types. In this review article, we discuss the stroke recurrence associated with MBs, with recent reports demonstrating several risk factors associated with MBs.