Meteorological Factors and Seasonal Stroke Rates: A Four-year Comprehensive Study.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION:

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that acute cardiovascular events including stroke are not distributed randomly over time but instead depend on months/season of the year. We report the impact of meteorological variables in extremely hot and arid climate on stroke.

METHODS:

Acute stroke patients admitted from January 2014 to December 2017 were included. The data included demographics, clinical risk factors, temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity, dew point, wind speed, and atmospheric pressure. We calculated stroke rates/100,000/month.

RESULTS:

There were 3654 cases of stroke (ischemic stroke [IS]: 2956 [80.9%]; and intracerebral hemorrhage [ICH]: 698 [19.1%]) with no difference in hematocrit, creatinine, and blood urea between hot and cold seasons (p > .05). We observed a positive significant correlation of IS with the mean temperature (AOR: 1.023; 95% CI: 1.009-1.036; P = .001) and mean solar radiation (AOR: 1.268; 95% CI: 1.021-1.575; P = .032) showing a 2.3% and 26.8% higher risk relative to ICH respectively, a negative correlation between IS with relative humidity (AOR: 0.99; 95% CI: 0.984-0.997; P = .002), and atmospheric pressure (AOR: 0.977; 95% CI: 0.966-0.989; P < .001) was observed, 1% increase in the relative humidity correlate with 2.4% and 1% lower risk of IS incidence relative to ICH respectively.

CONCLUSION:

We demonstrated a distinct seasonal pattern in the incidence of stroke with an increase in IS rates relative to ICH during the summer months with higher solar radiations that cannot be explained by physiological measures suggestive of dehydration or hem-concentration.

• Authors: Abdul Salam, Saadat Kamran, Rubina Bibi, Hesham M Korashy, Aijaz Parray, Abdulla Al Mannai, Abdulrahman Al Ansari, Krishna Kumar Kanikicharla, Arta Zogaj Gashi, Ashfaq Shuaib
• Journal: Journal of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases : the official journal of National Stroke Association (J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis) Vol. 28 Issue 8 Pg. 2324-2331 (Aug 2019) ISSN: 1532-8511 [Electronic] United States
• PMID: 31227318 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Observational Study)
• Copyright: Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Topics

• Adult
• Aged
• Atmospheric Pressure
• Body Composition
• Brain Ischemia (diagnosis, epidemiology, physiopathology)
• Climate
• Female
• Hot Temperature (adverse effects)
• Humans
• Humidity (adverse effects)
• Incidence
• Male
• Middle Aged
• Qatar (epidemiology)
• Retrospective Studies
• Risk Assessment
• Risk Factors
• Seasons
• Stroke (diagnosis, epidemiology, physiopathology)
• Sunlight (adverse effects)
• Time Factors
• Weather
• Wind