Stroke and conditions that mimic it: a protocol secures a safe early recognition

Certain disorders may be falsely diagnosed as stroke. We examined the efficacy of the diagnostic protocol that is followed in our stroke unit and was designed in order to early differentiate more efficiently between stroke and conditions that mimic it. METHODS-PATIENTS: Three hundred sixty-two elderly patients (196 male, 166 female with average age 74.56 years), who were hospitalized at our stroke center between January of 2005 and June of 2007 and diagnosed at admission as stroke patients, were retrospectively studied in order to investigate if the final diagnosis agreed with the initial diagnosis of stroke on admission.Our diagnostic protocol included medical history of the patient, assessment of state of consciousness, blood pressure, electrocardiogram, complete blood cell count (hematocrit/hemoglobin, leukocytes, platelets), clotting mechanism (prothrombin time, activated partial thromboplastin time), glucose, electrolytes (Na, K, Ca), renal (blood urea nitrogen, creatinine) and liver function (SGOT, SGPT), as well as imaging methods like chest X-Ray and brain CT scan.

In 95% of patients, the final diagnosis agreed with the initial diagnosis of stroke at admission. According to final diagnosis, 344 (95%) of them had stroke -either hemorrhagic or ischemic-, while from the rest 18 (5%), 12 (66.7%) were found to have metastatic neoplasm of brain, 3 (18.7%) had primal tumour of brain, whereas 3 (18.7%) suffered from other diseases (respiratory infection, meningoencephalitis, thyrotoxicosis). The principal symptoms of the conditions that mimicked a stroke were: aphasic disturbances (27.3%), dizziness/fainting (27.3%), headache/diplopia (11.1%), dysarthria (11.1%), hiccup and/or swallow disturbances (5.6%).

Our diagnostic protocol seems to ensure a high degree of differential diagnosis between stroke and conditions that mimic it.