Deans' stroke musings: Elevated white blood cell counts in ischemic stroke patients are associated with increased mortality and new vascular events

Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Elevated white blood cell counts in ischemic stroke patients are associated with increased mortality and new vascular events

Well you described something but provided no solutions to prevent or alleviate the problem. SO ABSOLUTELY FUCKING USELESS! YOU'RE FIRED!

Elevated white blood cell counts in ischemic stroke patients are associated with increased mortality and new vascular events

Thao Phuong Vo¹^*

Marie Hvelplund Kristiansen¹

Hans Carl Hasselbalch²

Troels Wienecke¹

¹Neurology Department, Zealand University Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Roskilde, Denmark
²Hematology Department, Zealand University Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Roskilde, Denmark

Background and purpose: High levels of white blood cells (WBC) in ischemic stroke have been shown to increase the risk of new vascular events and mortality in short and intermediate follow-up studies, but long-term effects remain unknown. We studied whether elevated levels of WBC in ischemic stroke patients are associated with new vascular events and mortality in a 10-year follow-up period.

Methods: We included ischemic stroke patients hospitalized between 2011 and 2012, categorizing their WBC counts within 48 h of stroke onset as high or normal (3.5–8.8 × 10⁹ mmol/L; >8.8 × 10⁹ mmol/L). Using Aahlen Johansen and Cox proportional hazard models with competing risk, we analyzed the association between WBC levels and new vascular events. Kaplan–Meier and standard Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess the risk of all-cause mortality.

Results: Among 395 patients (median age 69, [IQR: 63, 78], female patients 38,0%), 38.5% had elevated WBC at admission. During the 10-year follow-up, 113 vascular events occurred, with 46% in patients with elevated WBC and 54% in patients with normal WBC. After adjusting for relevant factors, elevated WBC levels were independently associated with increased risk of new vascular events (HR: 1.61, CI: 1.09–2.39 p < 0.05) and death (HR: 1.55, CI: 1.15–2.09, p < 0.05).

Conclusion: Elevated WBC levels in ischemic stroke patients are linked to a higher risk of new vascular events and mortality. Thus, ischemic stroke patients with elevated WBC without clinical infection need special attention to investigate possible underlying conditions to prevent future vascular events and reduce mortality. The interpretation of our results is limited by the absence of adjustment to premorbid functional status, stroke severity, and stroke treatment.