Ischemic stroke outcome: A review of the influence of post-stroke complications within the different scenarios of stroke care

• Stroke is the fourth cause of death and the second cause of disability.
• Stroke outcome depends on baseline characteristics and post-stroke complications.
• Different post-stroke complications should be managed depending on time from stroke.
• Prediction and early management of post-stroke complications might improve outcome.

Stroke remains one of the main causes of death and disability worldwide. The challenge of predicting stroke outcome has been traditionally assessed from a general point of view, where baseline non-modifiable factors such as age or stroke severity are considered the most relevant factors. However, after stroke occurrence, some specific complications such as hemorrhagic transformations or post stroke infections, which lead to a poor outcome, could be developed. An early prediction or identification of these circumstances, based on predictive models including clinical information, could be useful for physicians to individualize and improve stroke care. Furthermore, the addition of biological information such as blood biomarkers or genetic polymorphisms over these predictive models could improve their prognostic value. In this review, we focus on describing the different post-stroke complications that have an impact in short and long-term outcome across different time points in its natural history and on the clinical-biological information that might be useful in their prediction.

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