Higher Stroke Risk for African Americans
Reported October 07, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Dangerous brain lesions that increase the likelihood of having a stroke may be more common in blacks.
In a recent study, researchers found cerebral microbleeds — small bleeds within the brain — can be important indicators for stroke. In a recent study, researchers found these lesions occurred 32 percent more often in blacks than in whites.
For the study, 87 people who had suffered an intracerebral hemorrhage — a type of stroke that involves bleeding in the brain — underwent brain scans. Results showed not only did blacks have cerebral microbleeds more often; they were also more likely to have them in several different areas of the brain. Blacks had the lesions in the lower and middle parts of the brain, while whites had them most frequently near the surface of the brain.
Finding racial differences that could be linked with a higher prevalence for these brain lesions may lead to new methods for testing and treating people to prevent stroke, study author Chelsea Kidwell, M.D., with Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., was quoted as saying. Knowing if a person has a higher likelihood of having these brain lesions or bleeding in the brain is important for doctors and patients when caring for medically underserved groups of people and optimally treating their stroke risk factors.
Researchers say hemorrhagic stroke is two to three times more common among minorities, and microbleeds are found in 50 percent to 80 percent of hemorrhagic stroke patients.
SOURCE: Neurology, 2008