Journal of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases : the official journal of National Stroke Association
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J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis · Jan 1994
White matter lesions on magnetic resonance imaging in a healthy elderly population: Correlations to vascular risk factors and carotid atherosclerosis.
We performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and extensive risk factor evaluation on 196 randomly selected, clinically asymptomatic participants of the Austrian Stroke Prevention Study to determine the clinical correlates of MRI white matter lesions (WML) in normals. WML were present in 103 (52.6%) individuals. ⋯ No other demographic or clinical factors, such as cardiac disease, diabetes mellitus, smoking, lipid status, serum fibrinogen, hematocrit, antiphospholipid antibody titer, or ultrasound results of the carotid arteries entered the model. These data imply the presence of yet undetermined factors in the pathogenesis of WML, probably independent of those known to be associated with atherothrombotic brain infarction.