Meta-analysis of risk factors of Chinese patients with different cerebral artery stenosis locations

Abstract

We conducted a Meta-analysis to explore the relationship between different locations of cerebral artery stenosis and the risk factors in Chinese ischemic cerebral artery disease patients. We systematically searched electronic literature databases (last search 31 December 2014) for studies reporting the association between cerebral artery stenosis locations and risk factors of ischemic cerebral artery disease. We grouped patients into two groups, only intracranial artery stenosis group and only extracranial artery stenosis group, by the location of cerebral artery stenosis. Meta-analysis was carried out by Review Manager (Version 5.2) provided by Cochrane Collaboration. After the heterogeneity test, the odds ratios (OR) or the mean differences (MD) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were combined. The publication bias and sensitivity analysis were tested as while. A total of thirteen studies were identified, which are including 1 672 patients with intracranial artery stenosis and 1 239 patients with extracranial artery stenosis. The only intracranial artery stenosis patients tend to be younger than the patients of the other group. The combined MD (95% CI) of age was -4.57 (-8.22--0.91, P=0.01). Besides, the proportion of smokers in the only intracranial artery stenosis patients was higher than the other group. The combined OR (95% CI) of smoking was 0.08 (0.68-0.93, P=0.005). As to Chinese ischemic cerebral artery disease patients, visible differences of age and smoking were detected between the only intracranial artery stenosis group and extracranial group. However some risk factors of cerebral artery stenosis which were proved by large scale studies, such as hypertension, diabetes and dyslipidemia, were failed to test the visible difference between the two groups.