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• Posted July 16, 2024

U.S. Stroke Survival Is Improving, But Race Still Plays Role

There's good news and bad for stroke survival in the United States: New research shows that Americans are now more likely to survive long-term, but that's more true for whites than for Black Americans.

At least for a sample of people living in the greater Cincinnati area, "we saw that there clearly has been an improvement in five-year mortality [death] after stroke, and it probably is at least partially driven by the stroke systems of care that have been set up here in Cincinnati," said study co-author Dr. David Robinson.

He's an assistant professor of neurology and rehabilitation medicine at the University of Cincinnati. The findings were published July 15 in the journal Neurology.

The data used in the study come from a five-county region around Cincinnati that Robinson says is a "microcosm" of the general population of Americans as a whole. Rates of stroke death and survival were tracked since 1993.

Among patients who suffered an ischemic stroke (caused by a clot and by far the most common type), the rate at which survivors died in the five years following their stroke fell from 53% in 1993-94 to 48.3% in 2015, the data showed.

The data was not so encouraging for people who suffered a less common form of stroke, known as an intracerebral hemorrhage: These patients saw no improvement in five-year survival.

"The data suggests that we have specific interventions in the care of stroke that are disproportionately improving mortality" for people with ischemic strokes but not hemorrhagic strokes, Robinson noted in a university news release.

New and better treatments, as well as more "comprehensive" systems of stroke care are probably driving improvements in long-term survival, according to the researchers.

However, these improvements aren't benefiting everyone equally.

Black American stroke survivors were still 20% more likely to die within five years after an ischemic stroke than white individuals, the data showed.

The exact reasons behind the racial disparity isn't clear, the researchers said, but social, economic and environmental inequities likely play a role.

In the meantime, steps can be taken to lower stroke death rates even further.

"This includes making sure that they're on the right medications to minimize their chances of having an additional stroke; keeping them on the medications we know help, including cholesterol medications; and keeping their blood pressure under control,"Robinson said. 

More information

Find out more about stroke and stroke rehab at the American Stroke Association.

SOURCE: University of Cincinnati, news release, July 15, 2024