Patients

Background and Purpose This study concerns the long-term prognosis of lacunar infarcts. Methods We report the analysis of our hospital-based series of 178 patients consecutively admitted for a lacunar syndrome due to a lacunar infarct diagnosed with computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. Demographic data, medical history, vascular risk factors, and imaging data were recorded for each patient. The follow-up was 35 ±22 months. Results The lacunar syndrome was pure motor hemiparesis in 69 patients (39%), ataxic hemiparesis in 45 patients (25.4%), pure sensory stroke in 15 patients (8.5%), sensori-motor stroke in 14 patients (7.9%), and miscellaneous syn-drome in 34 patients (19.2%). The 4-year survival rate was 80±4 % and the 4-year survival rate without recurrent stroke was 85 ±3.5%. Using Cox proportional-hazards analysis, the Lacunar infarcts contribute to nearly 20 % (12 % to24%) of all strokes.17 Previous studies havedescribed the prognosis of lacunar infarcts1"6'8 and have shown low early case fatality and recurrent stroke rates compared with other subgroups of strokes. However, there are only a few series reporting the long-term prognosis of lacunar infarcts.3-6 Using multivariate analysis, we studied the prognostic factors in a series of 178 patients with symptomatic lacunar infarcts admitted consecutively to the stroke unit and followed up over an average of 35 ±22 months