EXPERTS, in a new study, say one out of six medical admissions in hospitals in south-western Nigeria is due to stroke, reaching its peak mid-dry and early wet season.
Researchers, in an analysis of stroke admissions for the year 2022, said stroke admissions peaks early wet season and mid dry season, with December to January and August to September recording the highest death cases in the year.
Crude mortality rate in the region was 36.7 percent.
The study, entitled ‘Seasonal Pattern of Acute Stroke Presentation in a Tropical African Locality: Perspective From Southwest Nigeria’, which involved, among others, Oladotun Olalusi, Akintomiwa Makanjuola, Rufus Akinyemi and Mayowa Owolabi, was presented at the 2023 annual scientific conference of the Nigerian Society of Neurological Sciences.
The study reported 2,521 medical admissions in the six secondary and tertiary hospitals in Ibadan North Local Government Area within the period, with 406 (16.1 percent) of the cases due to acute stroke, a sudden onset of stroke sometimes called a brain attack.
According to the study, ischemic strokes were fewer in the dry season than wet season while hemorrhagic strokes showed no variation in all the six hospitals involved in the study.
Ischemic stroke is the more common type. It is usually caused by a blood clot that blocks or plugs a blood vessel in the brain. This keeps blood from flowing to the brain. Within minutes, brain cells begin to die.
Hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain or on the surface of the brain leaks or breaks open, causing bleeding in or around the brain. This leads to swelling and pressure, which can damage cells and tissue in the brain.
In addition, stroke severity appeared to be an indication for seeking hospital care and sudden onset hemorrhagic stroke was the predominant subtype, accounting for 51.7 percent of stroke admissions.
The study concluded: “Prolonged time of presentation, time to brain imaging and referral bias in favour of hemorrhagic stroke may mitigate against effective thrombolysis, the process of breaking up a blood clot that is blocking blood flow, in Ibadan. Regional hospitals should be encouraged to refer Ischemic stroke to facilities with thrombolysis.”
Professor Mayowa Owolabi, a stroke expert at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, said: “The topmost risk factor for stroke in the Stroke Investigative Research and Education Network (SIREN) study is hypertension. In order of importance are abnormally high cholesterol or fats in the blood (dyslipidemia), regular meat intake, obesity (particularly pot belly) and diabetes mellitus.
“Globally, Africans are highly susceptible to hypertension and the prevalence of hypertension is highest in Africa, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) recording. Also, its control rate is the lowest. Only 10 percent of hypertension is controlled in Africans and 90 percent is either not diagnosed or not on treatment but not controlled and that is a huge problem.”
and then