Tumor metastasis has a significant relationship with the development of acute ischemic stroke in Chinese cancer patients: a retrospective study

OBJECTIVE: This study was designed to analyze the relationship between tumor metastasis and acute ischemic stroke (AIS) in Chinese cancer patients. METHODS: This retrospective study included 119 cancer patients with AIS and 152 cancer patients without AIS. Basic information was collected and tumor metastasis status was determined for all patients. RESULTS: The whole cohort had a median age of 59 (49–69) years with 150 men (55.4%). There were 98 patients (36.2%) with tumor metastasis. Patients with AIS had significantly more males, tumor metastasis, lung cancer, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, higher age, D-dimer, international normalized ratio, prothrombin time, prothrombin activity, and thrombin time, while they had significantly lower levels of hemoglobin, red blood cells, and hematocrit. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, AIS was significantly and positively associated with age, tumor metastasis, D-dimer, and thrombin time. In multivariate Cox regression analysis, tumor metastasis, AIS, D-dimer, thrombin time, and fibrinogen were significantly and positively associated with worse prognosis. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates that tumor metastasis was positively and independently associated with AIS in Chinese cancer patients, suggesting that tumor metastasis has a significant relationship with the development of AIS. Additionally, tumor metastasis and AIS had negative independent effects on the prognosis of patients.