| Abstract: | OBJECTIVE: To determine the distribution and severity of arterial lesions of intracranial and extracranial arteries in stroke patients in Chinese. METHODS: We studied 120 consecutive autopsy cases including 100 cases of stroke (50-80 years) and 20 cases of cancer as controls (50-80 years). Medium intracranial arteries and their primary branches, small intracerebral arteries, arterioles and extracranial carotid arteries (from 16 cases only) were examined with light microscopy. RESULTS: The stroke patients had significantly lower mean LA-VA ratios of the medium sized intracranial arteries and their primary branches, small intracerebral arteries and arterioles than the controls (P < 0.001). The stroke patients had higher mean VW-VR ratios of these arteries than the controls (P < 0.001). Atherosclerotic narrowing of the medium sized intracranial arteries and their primary branch were more severe than those of the extracranial caotid arteries. Moreover, the proximal portion of the primary branch arteries was much more severe than that of extracranial caotid arteries (P < 0.01, P < 0.05) in the stroke patients. CONCLUSION: Stroke patients had atherosclerotic lesions of the intracranial medium sized arteries and their primary branches and sclerotic lesions of the small intracerebral arteries and arterioles. These pathological changes resulted in thickening arterial walls and narrowing arterial lumens. |
