Frequency and Outcomes of Patients with Misdiagnosed Acute Stroke

Younger patients were more likely to have a missed stroke diagnosis in a registry analysis.

Acute ischemic stroke can be a challenging diagnosis due to the plethora of possible neurological symptoms and signs and the fact that radiologic studies (especially computed tomography) may be negative in the first hours. Consequences of a missed stroke diagnosis have not received much attention. These authors retrospectively analyzed 2200 patients from the Lausanne Acute Stroke Registry, of whom 47 (2.1%) were initially misdiagnosed.

Patients with an initial misdiagnosis were likely to be younger and to have lower diastolic blood pressure. Clinical features that were significantly more common in misdiagnosed patients than in correctly diagnosed stroke patients were lack of eye deviation (odds ratio, 0.21) and cerebellar stroke (OR, 3.78). …

Reviewing Author

Seemant Chaturvedi, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardBayer Pharmaceuticals; Novartis

Grant/Research SupportNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Editorial BoardsNeurology; Stroke

Seemant Chaturvedi, MD

Disclosures

Consultant/Advisory BoardBayer Pharmaceuticals; Novartis

Grant/Research SupportNational Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Editorial BoardsNeurology; Stroke

Frequency and Outcomes of Patients with Misdiagnosed Acute Stroke

Topics

Reviewing Author