Mehrdad Zarghami: Evaluating aPL Prevalence and Recurrence Risk in Ischemic Stroke
Mehrdad Zarghami, Internal Medicine Resident at Jamaica Medical Center Hospital, Postdoctoral Researcher of Harvard Medical School, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article by Nathan W. Watson et al., published in Stroke, adding:
“Excited to share our newly published systematic review and meta-analysis in Stroke
‘Prevalence and Clinical Relevance of Antiphospholipid Antibodies in Ischemic Stroke.’
In this analysis of 52 studies, we evaluated the prevalence of antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and their association with first and recurrent ischemic stroke.
Key findings included:
Nearly 1 in 5 patients with ischemic stroke were aPL-positive — pooled prevalence 19.1%.
aPL positivity was associated with almost 3-fold higher odds of first ischemic stroke (OR 2.93).
Lupus anticoagulant showed the strongest association, with OR 6.69.
Importantly, aPL positivity was not significantly associated with recurrent ischemic stroke in the available data (OR 1.20).
These findings highlight the potential importance of antiphospholipid antibodies in the evaluation and risk characterization of patients presenting with ischemic stroke, while also underscoring important questions regarding recurrence and long-term management.
Grateful to Nathan Watson, Syed Bukhari, Sina Rashedi, Behnood Bikdeli, and the entire multidisciplinary team for the opportunity to contribute to this collaborative work.”
Title: Prevalence and Clinical Relevance of Antiphospholipid Antibodies in Ischemic Stroke: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Authors: Nathan W. Watson, Syed Bukhari, Sina Rashedi, Mariana Pfeferman, Francisco Ujueta, Bassil Bacare, Brittany N. Weber, Mehrdad Zarghami, Yogendra Kanthi, Eric A. Secemsky, Jean M. Connors, Geoffrey D. Barnes, Sacha Uljon, Samuel Z. Goldhaber, Jeffrey I. Weitz, Karen H. Costenbader, Harlan M. Krumholz, Gregory Piazza, Mary Cushman, Christopher D. Anderson, Mitchell S. V. Elkind, Behnood Bikdeli
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