Value of ABCD2 in predicting early ischemic stroke in patients diagnosed with transient ischemic attack

As a significant number of patients diagnosed with transient ischemic attack (TIA) at emergency department are at risk to develop TIA or cerebral vascular accident (CVA), several attempts have been made to figure out a predictive method to detect those at higher risk of such attacks. We aimed to evaluate the role of ABCD2 scoring which includes age, blood pressure, clinical symptoms, diabetes mellitus, and duration of symptoms in predicting short term outcome of the patients presenting with TIA. One hundred consecutive patients visited between 2009 and 2010 in Hazrat Rasoul Akram Hospital and diagnosed with TIA were enrolled and their ABCD2 scores were registered. The incidence of death, CVA, or TIA during the first week after the attack was recorded. Eleven patients suffered new TIA/CVA after 1 week. Sensitivity and specificity of ABCD2 score for predicting CVA/TIA at cut-off point of 4 were 72.7% and 52.8%, respectively. At the same cut-off point for ABCD2, positive and negative predictive values were 16% and 94 %, respectively. Our results show that although patients with ABCD2 score greater than 4 were more likely to develop recurrent TIA/CVA in short term, those with lesser score still harbour a considerable risk for TIA/CVA. Though ABCD2 as an easily applicable tool is very helpful in management of TIA patients at emergency department, but it should not be the only measure to rely on in our decision making.