Comorbidity index for predicting mortality at 6 months after reperfusion therapy

The eligibility of reperfusion therapy has been expanded to increase the number of patients. However, it remains unclear the reperfusion therapy will be beneficial in stroke patients with various comorbidities. We developed a reperfusion comorbidity index for predicting 6-month mortality in patients with acute stroke receiving reperfusion therapy. The 19 comorbidities included in the Charlson comorbidity index were adopted and modified. We developed a statistical model and it was validated using data from a prospective cohort. Among 1026 patients in the retrospective nationwide reperfusion therapy registry, 845 (82.3%) had at least one comorbidity. As the number of comorbidities increased, the likelihood of mortality within 6 months also increased (p < 0.001). Six out of the 19 comorbidities were included for developing the reperfusion comorbidity index on the basis of the odds ratios in the multivariate logistic regression analysis. This index showed good prediction of 6-month mortality in the retrospective cohort (area under the curve [AUC], 0.747; 95% CI, 0.704–0.790) and in 333 patients in the prospective cohort (AUC, 0.784; 95% CI, 0.709–0.859). Consideration of comorbidities might be helpful for the prediction of the 6-month mortality in patients with acute ischemic stroke who receive reperfusion therapy.