The effect of statins on National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NiHSS) in Ischemic stroke

Introduction. Stroke is a type of nervous focal disorder that occurs suddenly because of acute vascular events. 113-149 out of 100000 persons (0.113-0.149%) face with stroke in Iran annually. This causes treatment costs and many disabilities. Recently, studies indicated that statins, as a class of drugs, could decrease the chance of stroke recurrence and probably disabilities after stroke onset. This paper presents the effects of previous statins consumption on NIHSS in patients hospitalized in Shahid Mohammadi Hospital of Bandar Abbas in 2014-5. Materials and methods. Based on the World Health Organization categorization, 140 patients suffered from stroke, experienced stroke once or more, and were older than 20 years old. They were studied with a simple convenience sampling in this descriptive study during 2014-5. The exclusion criteria were non-neurological vision disorders, ICH, and unwillingness of the patients to participate in the research. The patients were classified into two teams, one taking statin before the stroke onset (group A) and other taking no statins before stroke onset (group B). Patients were initially examined with the help of NIHSS rate measurement (using NIHSS rating standard questionnaire), type of stroke (ischemic or hemorrhagic), and other demographic data. Then the data were inserted into SPSS 22 and descriptive statistical tests (median, mean and standard deviation), Spearman and Mann-Whitney tests, were used due to the abnormal distribution of the data. Results. 140 patients suffered from stroke (95 men (67.85%) and 45 women (32.14%)) with an average age of 67.9 years old, being studied in two groups (A and B). A direct correlation was seen between age and NIHSS (sig = 0.057) but it was not notable (P > 0.05). There was no clear relationship among sex, number of prior stroke onsets, type of stroke, lipid profile (TG, Total Cholesterol, LDL, HDL), blood sugar, underlying disease (diabetes, hypertension and ischemic heart diseases), drug abuse and history of hospitalization in ICI with NIHSS rate (P > 0.05). 106 patients (75.71%) have never taken any type of statin class of drugs and only 34 patients (24.28%) were taking these medications before the stroke. The difference between NIHSS rates of groups A and B was not clear and notable (P > 0.05). Conclusion. According to the findings of this research, taking statins before the onset of stroke and immediately after it showed no significant difference in the level of following dysfunction, measured with NIHSS, and further studies are necessary.