Distinguishing Intracerebral Hemorrhage from Ischemia in Mild Stroke

This study's goal was to assess the value of a clinical scale for predicting which patients with mild stroke have intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) as opposed to ischemic stroke. Such a tool is potentially valuable in an outpatient assessment of patients with minor stroke presenting beyond the acute phase.

To derive the new scale, investigators analyzed the clinical features of participants in the prospective OXVASC (Oxford Vascular) Study, including the 5.1% of patients with minor stroke who had evidence of ICH on imaging. The predictive model was then validated in a hospital-clinic cohort of similar ICH patients (5.4% of patients with minor stroke referred to the outpatient clinic). The authors identified four features that reliably predicted…