Retinal vascular caliber and extracranial carotid disease in patients with acute ischemic stroke: The multi-centre retinal stroke (mcrs) study

Abstract

Background and Purpose-Previous studies show that both retinal vascular caliber and carotid disease predict incident stroke in the general population, but the exact relationship between these 2 microvascular and macrovascular structural risk factors is unclear. We studied the relationship between retinal vascular caliber and carotid disease in patients presenting with acute ischemic stroke. Methods-We conducted a cross-sectional study of patients with acute ischemic stroke recruited from 3 centers (Melbourne, Sydney, Singapore). The caliber of retinal arterioles and venules was measured from digital retinal photographs. Severe extracranial carotid disease was defined as stenosis 75% or occlusion determined by carotid Doppler using North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial-based criteria. Results-Among the 1029 patients with acute stroke studied, 7% of the population had severe extracranial carotid disease. Retinal venular caliber was associated with ipsilateral severe carotid disease (P