The anticardiolipin antibody in elderly stroke patients: its effects on stroke types, recurrence, and the coagulation-fibrinolysis system

Anticardiolipin antibody (aCL) is known as a risk marker for stroke, particularly in subjects younger than 50 years of age. We studied the effects of aCL on stroke types, recurrences, and the coagulation-fibrinolysis system in 257 elderly patients (63.2 +/- 11.4 years). Follow-up was performed for 3.1 years on 184 patients, for whom the rate of symptomatic and asymptomatic reinfarcts on CT was studied. aCL was positive in 30 (12%) of the patients. The incidence of atherosclerotic changes in the cerebral arteries was not significantly different between aCL-positive and aCL-negative patients. The aCL-positive patients had a greater rate of individuals not having any of the known risk factors (p < 0.05), a greater incidence of cortical infarctions (p < 0.05), more frequent symptomatic recurrences (p < 0.05). They had significantly greater changes in molecular markers for the coagulation-fibrinolysis system in the acute phase (p < 0.05), but not in the chronic phase.