RESEARCH ARTICLE Asymptomatic Intracranial Arterial Stenosis and Metabolic Syndrome: The APAC Study

. These authors contributed equally to this work. " AW and ZL are shared first authors on this work. Purpose: The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. We investigated potential associations between MetS and asymptomatic intracranial arterial stenosis (ICAS) in a general population. Methods: The community-based ‘‘Asymptomatic Polyvascular Abnormalities in Community Study’ ’ examined asymptomatic polyvascular abnormalities in a Chinese population aged 40+ years without history of stroke and coronary heart disease. MetS was defined by the International Diabetes Federation criteria. Asymptomatic ICAS was diagnosed by transcranial color-coded Doppler sonography. Results: Out of 5393 study participants, asymptomatic ICAS was detected in 713 (13.2%) participants, and MetS in 1323 (24.5%) individuals. Prevalence of asymptomatic ICAS increased significantly from 7.5 % to 24.2 % with increasin