Relation Between Plasma Homocysteine Concentrations And Youth Ischemic Stroke

ObjectiveTo investigate the relation between homocysteine concentrations and youth ischemic cerebral stroke and the influential factors via analyzing the distribution character and relevant influential factors of plasma homocysteine concentrations in young or old ischemic stroke patients and comparing them with normal youth and elder control group. It was wished to provide theory basis to the prevention and treatment of youth ischemic stroke.MethodsWe collected clinical datas of 60 hospitalized young ischemic stroke patients in Liaoning Province People Hospital from may , 2008 to may, 2009 (including 21 transient ischemic attack patients and 39 cerebral infarction patients). At the same time we collected datas of 60 hospitalized old ischemic stroke patients during the same period (including 23 transient ischemic attack patients and 37 cerebral infarction patients) and 60 healthy medical examinationers in this hospital examination center , 30 youth and 30 elder separately. The datas included detailed records of their age, sex, history of hypertension or diabetes , blood lipids , smoking or drinking history, plasma homocysteine concentrations, folate and vitamin B₁₂ concentrations.The relevant datas were analyzed with statistical methods.Results1. Comparison results between youth ischemic stroke group and normal youth group of hypertension , diabetes , smoking history , drinking history , triglyceride (TG), cholesterol (CHOL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and plasma homocysteine (Hcy) concentrations: The rate of in combination with hypertension, diabetes and smoking, drinking in youth stroke group was higher than that in the normal youth group. In youth stroke group, TG, LDL and Hcy concentrations were higher and HDL was lower than normal youth group. The difference between two groups was statistically significant (P<0.05). While the difference of CHOL concentrations between the two groups was not statistically significant (P>0.05).2. Comparison results between youth transient ischemic attack (TIA) group and youth cerebral infarction (CI) group of plasma homocysteine concentratios: youth TIA patients' plasma Hcy is 16.59μmol/L and youth cerebral infarction patients' is 18.87μmol/L. There was no significant difference between the two groups(P>0.05).3. Comparison results between youth stroke group and elder stroke group of plasma homocysteine concentrations : plasma Hcy concentrations of youth stroke group was 18.04μmol/L. It's higher than that of the older stroke group (14.70μmol/L). The difference between two groups was statistically significant (P<0.05).4.Comparison results between normal youth group and normal elder group of plasma homocysteine concentrations: plasma Hcy concentrations of normal elder group was 11.78μmol/L. It's higher than that of normal youth group(11.30μmol/L). But the difference was not statistically significant(P>0.05).5. To investigate the influential factors of homocysteine concentrations, we recorded plasma homocysteine , folate and vitamin B₁₂ concentrations of 180 observed cases and tested datas with rank correlation test. Correlation coefficient(r_s) was calculated and the results were : correlation coefficient (r_s) between plasma homocysteine with plasma folate and vitamin B₁₂ was -0.37 and -0.38 separataly, P<0.001.ConclusionElevated concentrations of plasma homocysteine is relevant to ischemic stroke, and more closely relevant to youth ischemic stroke, but is not relevant to the stroke types. Plasma homocysteine concentrations and folate, vitamin B₁₂ concentrations are negatively correlated.