Assessing Mortality in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Turkish Cohort

Aim: Acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has a high morbidity and mortality. We aimed to investigate the etiologic types, involved vascular territory, and mortality rates of patients with AIS in a Turkish cohort. Materials and Methods: The archive records of a total of 403 patients with AIS were included retrospectively. Medical histories, neurological examinations, and death dates were collected through the hospital automation system. Based on the clinical data and imaging features, all patients were etiologically categorized according to the the Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment classification. Results: The mean age was 72.3±12.4 years, with a slight female predominance at 50.4%. According to the Acute Stroke Treatment classification, the etiologic types of AIS patients were as follows: large-artery atherosclerosis at 50.6%, cardioembolism at 28.3%, small-vessel occlusion at 12.4%, undetermined etiology at 7.2%, and other determined etiology at 1.5%. Compared to the other vascular territories, the middle cerebral artery (MCA) was the most frequently involved territory (45.7%) and also had the highest mortality rate in older patients with AIS (p<0.001). When compared to inferior divisions, superior divisional infarctions had higher mortality for both right and left MCA strokes (p<0.001). Compared to male patients, female patients had significantly higher mortality rates at 0-30 days for internal cerebral artery stroke (p=0.048) and at all time periods for right MCA stroke (p=0.046). Conclusion: We found that advanced age, being female, having right-sided and having superior divisional MCA infarctions were highly related to mortality in patients with AIS

The Serum S100B Level as a Biomarker of Enteroglial Activation in Patients with Ulcerative Colitis

Objective. Recent studies have demonstrated that enteric glial cells (EGC) participate in the homeostasis of the gastrointestinal tract. This study investigated whether enteroglial markers, including S100B protein and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), can serve as noninvasive indicators of EGC activation and disease activity in UC patients. Methods. This clinical prospective study included 35 patients with UC and 40 age- and sex-matched controls. The diagnosis of UC was based on standard clinical, radiological, endoscopic, and histological criteria. Clinical disease activity was evaluated using the Modified Truelove-Witts Severity Index. Serum samples were analyzed for human GFAP and S100B using commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kits. Results. GFAP was not detected in the serum of either UC patients or controls (P>0.05). However, we found a significant (P<0.001) decrease in the serum S100B levels in the UC patients. No correlation between the serum S100B level and the disease activity or duration was observed (P>0.05). The serum S100B levels did not differ between UC patients with active disease (24 patients, 68.6%) or in remission (11 patients, 31.4%) (P>0.05). Conclusions. Ulcerative colitis patients had significantly lower serum S100B levels, while GFAP was of no diagnostic value in UC patients