Premium
Cerebral microembolism, a disease marker for ischemic cerebrovascular events in the antiphospholipid syndrome of systemic lupus erythematosus?
Author(s) -
Rademacher J.,
Söhngen D.,
Specker C.,
Janda I.,
Sitzer M.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
acta neurologica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.967
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1600-0404
pISSN - 0001-6314
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0404.1999.tb07364.x
Subject(s) - medicine , antiphospholipid syndrome , cardiology , vascular disease , systemic disease , disease , lupus anticoagulant , ischemia , thrombosis
Objectives – We investigated whether the detectability of microembolic Doppler signals (MES) in the intracranial circulation may help to define the individual cerebrovascular risk in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Material and methods – Retrospective cross‐sectional study of 70 patients with SLE with or without APS, and 30 controls with a history of cerebral ischemia of unknown cause. Of all patients, 38 had a clinical history of APS and 32 did not. Results – 15 patients with APS (39%) showed MES. In contrast, all patients without APS and 29 of 30 controls were microemboli‐negative. MES were more strongly associated with cerebrovascular symptoms than with APS, antiphospholipid antibodies, or cardiac pathology. The time elapsed since the last ischemic cerebrovascular symptom was significantly shorter in microemboli‐positive patients than in microemboli‐negative patients ( P <0.001). Conclusion – MES may be related to disease activity in patients with SLE and APS. Their detection may help to assess individual cerebrovascular risk and contribute to therapeutic decision making and therapeutic monitoring.