Lupus anticoagulants and anticardiolipin antibodies are antiphospholipid antibodies (APLAb) with related antigenic specificities and are newly recognized markers for an increased risk of thrombosis. We studied 48 patients who presented with cerebral or visual dysfunction associated with APLAb to help clarify the diagnostic, clinical, laboratory, radiologic, and pathologic features in these patients. Most patients presented with transient cerebral ischemia or cerebral infarction. Recurrent and stereotypic events were frequent. Visual disturbances resulted from amaurosis fugax, retinal arterial or venous occlusion, occipital ischemia, diplopia, and migraine-like disturbances. Three patients presented with severe atypical classic migraine. Recurrent infarcts of brain and eye were significantly associated with the presence of cigarette smoking, hyperlipidemia, and a positive antinuclear antibody. During 44.4 patient-years of prospective follow-up, the combined stroke and systemic thrombotic event rate was 0.27 events per patient-year and was 0.54 events per patient-year if TIA and death were included. Forty (83%) of the patients did not have systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Thrombocytopenia was present in 15 (31%) and a false-positive VDRL in 11 (23%) of the patients. Cerebral angiography was normal or revealed large-vessel occlusion or stenosis without changes suggestive of vasculitis. Patients with only transient dysfunction generally had normal radiologic studies, including angiography. Organs and arterial vessels studied pathologically revealed thrombotic occlusive disease without vasculitis. APLAb are strongly associated with an immune-mediated thrombotic tendency, generally in the absence of SLE. Other stroke risk factors may add to the risk of recurrent ischemic events in patients with APLAb.

There is a strong temporal association of the use of alkaloidal cocaine with both ischemic and hemorrhagic cerebrovascular events. Cocaine-related stroke probably has many causes. A thorough history focusing on the use of cocaine and toxicologic screening of urine and serum should be part of the evaluation of any young patient with a stroke.

We retrospectively and prospectively reviewed the incidence of stroke in 105 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Stroke occurred in 14 (15%) of 91 consecutive patients with documented SLE; nine (64%) of the 14 had multiple cerebral infarcts. Factors associated with stroke and the frequency of stroke were systemic thrombosis (30%), elevated partial thromboplastin time (36%), spontaneous abortion (50%), age over 60 years (57%), transient ischemic attacks (57%), previous stroke (64%), and cardiac valvular disease (86%).

In this study, ancrod had a favorable benefit-risk profile for patients with acute ischemic stroke.

We review the definition, pathogenesis, natural history, and prognosis and describe the first experimental model of lacunes. Defined pathologically or radiologically, lacunes are small cerebral infarcts which become cystic and are caused by occlusion of small arteries. The clinical definition of lacune is confused. The word "lacune" means a small stroke. While the immediate mortality rate from a small stroke is low, many patients are unable to return to work and the long-term prognosis is guarded. Photochemical damage to the carotid artery of rats produces microemboli to the brain, resulting in cavitary lesions resembling lacunes in humans. The "lacune hypothesis" is a fallacy because small cerebral infarcts are not caused solely by a combination of hypertension and small vessel disease, and the various "lacunar syndromes" are simply small strokes which should be investigated as such. (Stroke 1990;21:1251-1257) T he "lacune hypothesis" states that lacunes are caused by a combination of hypertension and characteristic vascular lesions involving single perforating brain arteries.

Central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is highly variable, although it is often described under a single heading of "neuropsychiatric" or "CNS" SLE. To clarify these CNS abnormalities, we studied 91 lupus patients, 63 of whom had CNS symptoms or signs, over 599 patient years. By placing patients in relatively homogeneous clinical groups (stroke, seizure, suicide attempt, hallucination, confusion, decreased alertness) we detected significant (but variable among groups) correlations with other manifestations of SLE, suggesting separate mechanisms for each CNS disorder. These correlations were lost if all "CNS-SLE" was considered as a single group. Patients with decreased alertness often had undetected systemic infections and had a high death rate from infection, rather than from CNS-SLE. The understanding of the pathogenesis and potential treatment of CNS disorders in lupus will depend on classifying the patients into homogeneous groups.

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Cocaine, especially in its alkaloidal or "crack" form, has been increasingly associated with cerebrovascular disease. Before the crack epidemic, cocaine hydrochloride (HCl) was also implicated as a cause of stroke. However, less is known about the differences in stroke subtypes, age at stroke onset, or presence of underlying structural cerebrovascular disease with different forms of cocaine use. We compared 26 patients (previously reported) from our four institutions plus 16 cases reported in the literature of stroke associated with alkaloidal cocaine to 63 (57 reported in the literature and six not previously reported from our four institutions) cases of stroke associated with cocaine HCl. Ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes are equally likely after alkaloidal cocaine use, whereas cocaine HCl is more likely (approximately 80% of the time) to cause hemorrhagic stroke, with approximately half the intracranial hemorrhages occurring from ruptured cerebral saccular aneurysms or vascular malformations. The presence of an underlying cerebral aneurysm was more common among patients with cocaine HCl-associated strokes than alkaloidal cocaine-associated strokes. Cerebral infarction was significantly more common among the alkaloidal cocaine users than in all the cocaine HCl users, and this was also true when alkaloidal cocaine users were compared with parenteral cocaine HCl (intravenous and intramuscular) users. Only hemorrhagic stroke has been reported with intravenous cocaine HCl use. We conclude that the pathogenesis of cocaine-related stroke is heterogeneous, and depends, in part, on the form of cocaine used.