According to a new study, stroke patients with low blood pressure (BP) and non-cardiovascular diseases, such as cancer and dementia, have a higher risk of death after stroke.
“Lower average blood pressure, measured in the outpatient setting, was associated with increased risk of death after a stroke event. In addition, this higher risk of death appeared to happen particularly in patients who were smokers, or had a diagnosis of cardiac disease, cancer or dementia,” explained corresponding author Dr. Hugo J. Aparicio, MD, MPH, assistant professor of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine and an investigator at the Framingham Heart Study.
The findings were published in the journal Stroke. For the study, the researchers identified nearly 30,000 veteran patients with a first ischemic stroke who had outpatient blood pressure measurements within the previous 18 months before the stroke.
They divided this group by blood pressure categories and followed them overtime for the outcomes of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, with the hypothesis that both very high and very low blood pressure values lead to higher mortality risk.
Further, they discovered that those with lower blood pressure had the highest mortality, especially when they examined a subgroup of patients with at least one comorbidity of smoking, cardiovascular disease, cancer, or dementia.
“Our study suggests that stroke patients with a history of low to low-normal blood pressures, some 10 percent of stroke patients, are at high risk of mortality,” said Dr. Aparicio.
The researchers believe that by investigating the factors that contribute to death after stroke, patients, families, and practitioners can better understand and recognize conditions, like low blood pressure, that may predict their health outcomes.
“Ideally, this information can encourage better prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of risk factors such as smoking, heart disease, and cancer, so that if a stroke does occur patients have a better chance at recovery and survival,” Dr. Aparicio further added.
