Control of cardiovascular risk factors in patients with stroke attended in primary care in Spain. ICTUSCARE study

Background: The aim of this cross-sectional, multicenter survey was: 1) To investigate the level of control of cardiovascuar risk factors in patients with a previous stroke. 2) To know the pharmacological therapy used to attain the control. Patients and methods: Data obtained from a total of 955 patients were included in the analysis.. There were evaluated cardiovascular risk factors, parameters related to the degree of control, analytical parameters, antropometric and pharmacological indicated treatment. Results: The majority (61%) had suffered an ischemic stroke and 97.7% presented at least one associated cardiovascular risk factor, being hypertension (84.8%) and dyslipidemia (61.8%) the most frequent. Other factors were abdominal obesity (42.9%), diabetes mellitus (35.6%) and smoking (25.1%). Only 1.2% of the patients presented an adequate control of all cardiovascular risk factors. Only 17.6% had a well controlled blood pressure and in 29.8% LDL-cholesterol was well controlled. In 50.2% of diabetic patients HbA1c was well controlled. Angiotensin receptor blockers were the most widely used antihypertensive drugs (57.6%) while thiazide diuretics were prescribed in 33.4%. Statins were prescribed in 72.8% of patients and metformin, aspirin and acenocumarol in 30.2%, 573%, and 15.0% respectively. Conclusions: In conclusion, in patients with a past history of stroke arterial hypertension is the most common cardiovascular risk factor and the control of these factors requires an improvement. (C) 2009 Elsevier Espafia, S.L. All rights reserved.