Abstract

Background: In Chile, cerebrovascular diseases are the fifth cause of management of patients with cerebrovascular disease admitted to a public hospital during 1997. Patients and methods: A retrospective analysis of clinical records of patients discharges with a diagnosis of cerebrovascular disease. Those records in which there was discordance between the discharge from the clinical picture were not considered in the analysis. Results: Of the 563 discharges from the hospital with the diagnosis of cerebrovascular disease, 487 records were located and 450 were considered in the analysis. Fifty four percent of patients were male and ages ranged from 17 to 96 years old. fifty one percent of patients had an ischemic attack. There was a history of hypertension in 64% patients and 20% had an adequate treatment. Eighteen percent were diabetics, 34% had a heart disease and 20% had a precious episode of stroke. Mean hospital stay was 6.3 days in the emergency room and 11 days in the neurology ward. Hospital infections appeared in 21% of patients (respiratory in 68% and urinary in 22%), lethality was 30.5% and a CAT scan was done in 94%. At the moment of admission, 10% of patients had an evolution of less than 2 hours, 27% had an evolution between 2 and 6 hours and nine cases were potential eligible for thrombolysis. Conclusion: This is a picture of the local feature of patients with cerebrovascular diseases that can be used as a reference for future studies.