Table 1.
Baseline patient characteristics
| Variable | All patients (N = 1084) |
TIA/minor stroke (N = 768; 70.8%) |
Stroke-mimic (N = 316; 29.2%) |
p* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demographics | ||||
| Age, mean (SD) | 68.7 (15.5) | 71.6 (13.7) | 61.4 (17.0) | < 0.001 |
| Sex, male (%) | 573 (52.9) | 442 (57.6) | 131 (41.5) | < 0.001 |
| Symptom onset to ED presentation, hours, median [IQR] | 2.3 [1.3, 4.9] | 2.3 [1.3, 4.9] | 2.3 [1.3, 4.6] | 0.862 |
| Time of ED presentation | 0.317 | |||
| (midnight—4 am] | 70 (6.5) | 51 (6.6) | 19 (6.0) | |
| (4 am—8 am] | 85 (7.8) | 61 (7.9) | 24 (7.6) | |
| (8 am—noon] | 390 (36.0) | 267 (34.8) | 123 (38.9) | |
| (noon—4 pm] | 293 (27.0) | 207 (27.0) | 86 (27.2) | |
| (4 pm—8 pm] | 144 (13.3) | 100 (13.0) | 44 (13.9) | |
| (8 pm—midnight] | 102 (9.4) | 82 (10.7) | 20 (6.3) | |
| Anxiety/Panic Feeling (%) | 67 (6.2) | 44 (5.7) | 23 (7.3) | 0.410 |
| Investigations (%) | ||||
| MRI | 999 (92.2) | 720 (93.8) | 279 (88.3) | 0.004 |
| CTA | 884 (81.5) | 660 (85.9) | 224 (70.9) | < 0.001 |
| CT | 1014 (93.5) | 737 (96.0) | 277 (87.7) | < 0.001 |
| Medical History (%) | ||||
| Diabetes | 193 (17.8) | 143 (18.6) | 50 (15.8) | 0.314 |
| Hypertension | 620 (57.2) | 471 (61.3) | 149 (47.2) | < 0.001 |
| Medications (%) | ||||
| Statin for at least the last 30 days | 349 (32.2) | 265 (34.6) | 84 (26.6) | 0.013 |
| Antiplatelets for at least the last 7 days | 386 (35.6) | 296 (38.6) | 90 (28.5) | 0.002 |
| Beta blocker | 207 (19.1) | 166 (21.6) | 41 (13.0) | 0.001 |
| Calcium blocker | 150 (13.8) | 115 (15.0) | 35 (11.1) | 0.111 |
| Diuretic | 188 (17.3) | 146 (19.0) | 42 (13.3) | 0.030 |
| ACE inhibitor | 262 (24.2) | 197 (25.7) | 65 (20.6) | 0.090 |
| Angiotensin II receptor antagonist | 178 (16.4) | 137 (17.8) | 41 (13.0) | 0.061 |
| Vitamin K antagonist | 37 (3.4) | 30 (3.9) | 7 (2.2) | 0.225 |
| Novel anticoagulant | 46 (4.2) | 39 (5.1) | 7 (2.2) | 0.050 |
| 90-day Outcomes (%) | 0.003 | |||
| Death | 23 (2.1) | 16 (2.1) | 7 (2.2) | |
| Stroke | 33 (3.0) | 31 (4.0) | 2 (0.6) | |
| Lost to follow-up | 55 (5.1) | 31 (4.0) | 24 (7.6) | |
| No event | 973 (89.8) | 690 (89.8) | 283 (89.6) | |
| TOAST (%) | ||||
| Cardioembolic | 124 (11.4) | 124 (16.1) | ||
| Cryptogenic | 285 (26.3) | 285 (37.1) | ||
| Large-artery atherosclerosis | 122 (11.3) | 112 (15.9) | ||
| Small-vessel occlusion | 77 (7.1) | 77 (10.0) | ||
| Other known etiologies | 22 (2.0) | 22 (2.9) | ||
| Competing etiologies | 34 (3.1) | 34 (4.4) | ||
Medication data for statin, antiplatelets, and vitamin K antagonist missing for 1 case; TOAST subtype unavailable for 104 cases due to incomplete evaluation.
CT computed tomography, CTA computed tomography angiography, ED emergency department, MRI magnetic resonance imaging, SD standard deviation.
*p-values computed from Pearson’s chi-square test of homogeneity for categorical variables, Welch’s t-test and Mann-Whitney test for continuous variables reported with mean and median, respectively