• Lojana Tuntiyatorn, Pichaya Saksornchai, and Supoch Tunlayadechanont.
• Division of Neuroradiology, Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand. lojana.tun@mahidol.ac.th
• J Med Assoc Thai. 2013 Sep 1;96(9):1191-8.

BackgroundStroke is a clinically syndrome of a sudden onset of neurological deficit in a vascular cause. Stroke mimics is the non-vascular disorders with stroke-like clinical symptoms. It is important to distinguish true stroke from mimics since treatment plan may differObjectiveTo determine the incidence of the stroke mimics and identify their etiologies.Material And MethodAll non-contrast head CT of the patients with clinically diagnosed stroke who immediately received imaging upon arrival at the emergency department of the university hospital were retrospectively reviewed in 12-month period between January 1 and December 31, 2008. Medical records, laboratory results, MRI, and 6-month clinical follow-up records were reviewed for final diagnosis.ResultsSeven hundred four patients were included in this study, including 363 (51.5%) men and 341 (48.5%) women with range in age from 24 to 108 years. Amongst those, 417 (59.2%) were ischemic stroke, 80 (11.40%) were hemorrhagic stroke, 186 (26.4%) were stroke-mimics, and 21 (3%) were inconclusive. The etiologies among stroke-mimics were metabolic/intoxication (35, 18.8%), sepsis (28, 15.0%), seizure (21, 11.3%), syncope (20, 10.8%), subdural hemorrhage (14, 7.5%), vertigo (11, 6.0%), brain tumor (10, 5.30%), central nervous system infection (5, 2.7%), others (26, 14.0%), and unspecified (16, 8.6%).ConclusionIncidence rates and etiologies of the stroke mimics were similar to the western reports. However the frequency of each mimic was not.

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