High Blood Pressure Increases the Risk of Poor Outcome at Discharge and 12‐month Follow‐up in Patients with Symptomatic Intracranial Large Artery Stenosis and Occlusions: Subgroup analysis of the CICAS Study

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to discuss the relationship between blood pressure and prognosis of patients with symptomatic intracranial arterial stenosis. METHODS: Data on 2426 patients with symptomatic intracranial large artery stenosis and occlusion who participated in the Chinese Intracranial Atherosclerosis (CICAS) study were analyzed. According to the JNC 7 criteria, blood pressure of all patients was classified into one of the four subgroups: normal, prehypertension, hypertension stage I, and hypertension stage II. Poor outcomes were defined as death and functional dependency (mRS 3‐5) at discharge or at 1 year. RESULTS: For patients with intracranial stenosis of 70% to 99%, the rate of poor outcome at discharge was 19.3%, 23.5%, 26.8%, and 39.8% (P = 0.001) for each blood pressure subgroup. For patients with intracranial large artery occlusion, the rates were 17.6%, 22.1%, 29.5%, and 49.8%, respectively (P < 0.0001). The rate of poor outcome at 12‐month follow‐up was 12.6%, 15.3%, 28.5%, and 27.9% (P = 0.0038) in patients with stenosis of 70% to 99% for each blood pressure subgroup and 11.6%, 21.5%, 23.9%, 35.1% (P < 0.0001) in patients with occlusion. CONCLUSIONS: For patients with severe intracranial arterial stenosis or occlusion, higher hypertension stages are associated with an increased risk of poor outcome at discharge and 12‐month follow‐up.