[The importance of antiphospholipid antibodies in strokes]

The study of antiphospholipid antibodies has aroused a great deal of interest among researchers, as some of them are related to neurological diseases and in particular with cerebral ischemia. Cases of strokes in which the aetiology is unknown have been reported in young patients. Until now anticardiolipin antibodies and lupus anticoagulant have received the most attention in studies, but recently descriptions have been published of anticardiolipin antibodies with other particularities that can act as more specific immunity markers for strokes of undetermined origin in young adults. Recent research has been directed towards gaining an understanding of the mechanisms that allow these antibodies to play a direct role in the physiopathology of thrombosis and how certain risk factors smoking, high blood pressure, lipid disorders can exert an influence on the expression of phospholipids in the cerebral endothelium. Several authors have described different pathological mechanisms that help to understand the heterogeneous clinical manifestations of antiphospholipid syndrome.

There is a need to study the different possible antigens of the antiphospholipid antibodies, as well as their specificities and pathological mechanisms, in greater depth in order to obtain a phospholipid immunity marker that is useful in the diagnosis of young stroke patients who are positive for these antibodies.