ABSTRACT
The diagnostic category stroke, defined as brain injury resulting from disease of the blood vessels, is obviously a heterogeneous group with different pathological bases and varying clinical outcomes. In general, prognosis, including mortality, after stroke is largely determined by the mechanissm or type of stroke. Hemorrhage is considerably more likely to be lethal than infarction; however, even within these two major categories, mortality is related to the specific stroke subtype. Stroke mortality is generally divided into acute, usually within 30 days following stroke-the 30-day case fatality rate (CFR), and longterm, 1-5 years poststroke. Factors mediating acute mortality are generally a reflection of the severity of the initial insult while age and comorbid disease play a greater role in late deaths. Vital statistics, usually based on death certificate data, often lack the specificity to distinguish hemorrhage from ischemic stroke. Clinical series of well-studied stroke patients generally achieve this distinction with ease provided a computed tomography scan of the brain (CT-brain) is made soon after stroke onset.
