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Cigarette smoking and its association with in-hospital mortality in hemorrhagic stroke patients

Abstract:

Background: Smoking is a well-known reversible risk factor associated with acute ischemic stroke (AIS), however, some data showed that in-hospital mortality rates among smoker’s patients with hemorrhagic stroke is lower when compared with non-smokers patients. The objective of this analysis was to assess in-hospital patient mortality rate between smokers and non-smokers patients with confirmed diagnosis of hemorrhagic stroke. Methods and Results: We analyzed all the data from patients diagnosed with hemorrhagic stroke that were registered in the Florida Stroke database from 2008-2012. Among the 21,013 patients diagnosed with hemorrhagic stroke, 10.9% of patients were smokers. A Multivariable model was used to estimate the adjusted odds ratio of in-hospital mortality rate in smokers versus non-smokers. Smoking was associated with lower in-hospital mortality in hemorrhagic patients. (UOR= 0.71 vs. AOR= 0.75). Other risk factors like hypertension, BMI>40 and hyperlipidemia, remained significantly associated after modeling, and some others like gender, race, health insurance coverage, and diabetes became insignificant. The difference between unadjusted and adjusted odds ratios for smoking (0.71 versus 0.75) indicates no presence of substantial confounding by age and other control variables. Conclusions: Among patients hospitalized for hemorrhagic stroke, smoking is a risk factor for early age of onset, even among those with few vascular risk factors. The persistent association with lower in-hospital mortality after adjusted analyses probably represents other unmeasured confounding, although a biological effect of smoking cannot be excluded. Further clinical and prospective population-based studies are needed to explore variables that contribute to outcomes in these patients.