Ischemic Stroke Patients' Outcomes

We collected the following patients’ information: age, sex, independent or not before stroke onset, past medical history (e.g., hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and stroke), smoking habit, neurological findings on admission (e.g., Glasgow coma scale [GCS], hemiparesis, dysarthria, facial weakness, and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS]), subtypes of ischemic stroke based on the TOAST classification (large-artery atherosclerosis [LA], cardioembolism [CE], small-vessel occlusion [SV], stroke of other determined etiology, two or more causes identified, or negative evaluation) [17 (link)], the location of the lesion (supratentorial, infratentorial), complication of urinary tract infection (UTI), prescription at discharge (e.g., cilostazol and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor [ACE-I]), outcome at discharge (e.g., duration of admission and modified Rankin scale [mRS]), and meal at discharge (e.g., normal meal, soft meal, tube feeding, or intravenous hyperalimentation). We considered mRS 0–2 and 3–6 as good and poor outcomes at discharge, respectively. No patients received t-PA and endovascular treatment.
We calculated the integer-based pneumonia risk (ISAN) score, which was a prognostic score for PSP, and assessed by age (<60, 60–69, 70–79, 80–89, and >90 years as 0, 3, 4, 6, and 8 points, respectively), sex (female, 0; male, 2 points), NIHSS score on admission (0–4, 5–15, 16–20, and >21 as 0, 4, 8, and 10 points, respectively), and pre-independence (independent, 0; not independent, 2 points) [10 (link)]. Based on the total ISAN score, the risk of PSP was classified into the following four groups: 0–5, 6–10, 11–14, and >15 points as low-, medium-, high-, and very high-risk groups, respectively [10 (link)].