Thromb Haemost 2002; 87(02): 211-217
DOI: 10.1055/s-0037-1612975
Letters to the Editor
Schattauer GmbH

Prospective Study on Soluble Thrombomodulin and von Willebrand Factor and the Risk of Ischemic and Hemorrhagic Stroke

Lars Johansson
1   Department of Medicine, Skellefteå County Hospital
,
Jan-Håkan Jansson
1   Department of Medicine, Skellefteå County Hospital
,
Kurt Boman
1   Department of Medicine, Skellefteå County Hospital
,
Torbjörn K. Nilsson
2   Dept. of Clinical Chemistry, Örebro, University Hospital and Department of Biomedicine, Örebro University
,
Birgitta Stegmayr
3   Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine, Umeå University Hospital
,
Göran Hallmans
4   Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine and the Medical Bank, meå University Hospital, Sweden
› Author Affiliations
Further Information

Publication History

Received 30 June 2001

Accepted after resubmission 25 October 2001

Publication Date:
13 December 2017 (online)

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Summary

The aim of the present study was to examine if soluble thrombomodulin (sTM) and von Willebrand factor (VWF) could predict a first-ever ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke.

This study was an incident case-referent study from within a population-based cohort in northern Sweden. Up to 1996 about 44,000 subjects had been screened and stroke cases were classified according to the WHO MONICA criteria. A first-ever stroke occurred in 108 cases. A total of 216 controls were selected from the same cohort.

This prospective study found no association with sTM or VWF and the development of a first-ever ischemic stroke (n = 87) in the logistic regression model. For the hemorrhagic stroke cases (n = 18), the multivariate logistic regression model revealed a significant negative association with sTM. When dichotomized, the upper level (>17.3 µg/L) of sTM, as compared with the lower level (<17.3 µg/L), showed one fifth of the risk for hemorrhagic stroke (OR, 0.18; CI, 0.05 to 0.69). No significant association was found for VWF. We suggest that the novel finding of an inverse relation between sTM and hemorrhagic stroke should be investigated in a larger study.