Association between Twenty-Four-Hour Ambulatory Blood Pressure Variability and Cerebral Small Vessel Disease Burden in Acute Ischemic Stroke.

Objective: This study is aimed at investigating the association between the twenty-four-hour ambulatory blood pressure variability monitoring (ABPM) and cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) burden in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients.

Methods: 115 AIS patients with demographics, vascular risk factors, 24 h ABPM, and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were retrospectively enrolled. 3.0 T MRI was used to assess cSVD burden by combining four MRI markers including white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), cerebral microbleeds (CMBs), perivascular spaces (PVS), and lacunes. Correlation analysis was conducted to detect whether ABPM was associated with cSVD burden in AIS patients.

Results: 115 AIS patients with mean age 68.77 ± 10.26 years and 75.7% male were enrolled in this study. 112 AIS patients (97.4%) had at least one cSVD marker. Spearman correlation analysis indicated that hypertension was positively correlated with cSVD burden (ρ = 0.21, P = 0.07). High-density lipoprotein (HDL) was negatively correlated with cSVD burden (ρ = -0.21, P = 0.02). Blood pressure variability such as 24 h mean SBP (ρ = 0.23, P = 0.01), day mean SBP (ρ = 0.23, P = 0.01), and night mean SBP (ρ = 0.20, P = 0.04) was positively correlated with higher cSVD burden. Ordinal logistic regression analysis demonstrated that higher 24 h SBP SD and day mean SBP were independent risk factors for cSVD after controlling for other confounders.

Conclusions: Higher BPV was significantly related to total cSVD burden in AIS patients. 24 h SBP SD and day mean SBP were independent risk factors for cSVD burden in AIS patients but not DBP or DBP variability.