The Association Between Different Severities Of Leukoaraiosis And Vascular Risk Factors

Leukoaraiosis is usually seen in asymptomatic aged, and believed to be related with old age and hypertension. The clinical studies on the relationship between leukoaraiosis and vascular risk factors vary a lot, and should be studied further.ObjectTo study the association between different severities of leukoaraiosis and vascular risk factorsMethodVascular risk factors of age, sex, smoking history, alcohol history, hypertension history, diabetes, stroke, coronary heart disease and plasma lipids of 110 patients hospitalized in the neurological department were collected from February to March of 2010. All the patients undergone cranial CT or MRI, and a score is given to assess the severity of leukoaraiosis of each patient. Patients are classified as normal control group (NC group, n=51), leukoaraiosis group (LA group, n=59); LA group is further specified as mild LA (LA1 group, score 1 to 9 points, n=30) and severe LA (LA2 group, score≥10, n=29). Apply univariate method and Logistic regression to analyze the association between leukoaraiosis and vascular risk factors.ResultCompared to NC group, LA group has more patients with elder age, hypertension history, coronary heart disease and diabetes (P<0.05), while sex, smoking history, alcohol history, stroke history, abnormal plasma lipoprotein show no significant difference. Between groups Logistic regression analysis confirms elder age, hypertension and coronary heart disease are independently associated with leukoaraiosis. Diabetes is related to mild leukoaraiosis (OR=6.663, P=0.005) and shows no difference between LA2 and NC group. Compared to LA1 group, LA2 group has elder age, but without significance (P=0.132). Instead, the number of diabetes patients is less in LA2 group than that in LA1 group (OR=0.159,95%CI (0.048,0.531)).ConclusionElder age, hypertension, coronary heart disease and diabetes are independently related with leukoaraiosis. Diabetes seems to be a risk factor to the mild leukoaraiosis and play a protective role in the development of severe leukoaraiosis.