In Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke and Cancer: The Shorter Interval, the Higher D-Dimer

OBJECTIVES: Acute ischemic stroke in cancer patients is uncommon. The study was aimed to identify the relationship of patients’ characteristics and the interval time between the diagnosis of stroke and cancer. METHODS: The clinical features of acute ischemic stroke patients with cancer were retrospectively analyzed from May, 2016 to April, 2021. Categorical data was compared between groups using chi-square test. Hematological biomarkers were compared using Mann-Whitney U test. RESULTS: A total of 70 acute ischemic stroke patients with cancer were identified. The median interval time between the diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke and cancer was 53.0 months. Patients with interval < 53.0 months and > 53.0 months were regarded the short interval group and the long interval group, respectively. Between the short and long interval groups, there was no significant differences in respect to sex, age, chemotherapy, hypertension, diabetes, smoking, atrial fibrillation and dyslipidemia. The medians of homocysteine, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and fibrinogen were also not significantly different between the two different interval groups. D-dimer in the short interval group was higher than that in the long interval group (216 vs. 142 ng/mL, p = 0.037). The long interval group had more surgery for cancer than the short interval group (94.3% vs. 57.1%, p = 0.000). CONCLUSION: In conclusion, in patients with ischemic stroke and cancer, patients with short interval time between the diagnosis of ischemic stroke and cancer had higher D-dimer than patients with long interval time.