Early detection and better management of diabetes as well as improved health literacy around the long-term risks are warranted to reduce the number of patients with ischaemic stroke and TIA.
A study of 323 stroke and TIA patients admitted to the Ballarat Base Hospital in regional Victoria over two years showed 28.5% had diabetes.
Of the stroke patients with diabetes, a significant proportion (45.3%) had suboptimal glycaemic control (median HbA1c 7.4%).
Compared to patients without diabetes, there was also a statistically higher rate of dyslipidaemia in the stroke patients with diabetes (58.7%) and a higher proportion of hypertension in patients with diabetes in both the stroke (73.3%) and TIA groups (76.5%).
The study, published in the Internal Medicine Journal, said diabetes was not found to be significantly associated with any particular territory of acute infarct (p=0.800) or cause of stroke (p=0.269).
However it noted that might be related to the relatively small sample size.
Overall, almost a third of stroke patients (30.8%) had impaired renal function (eGFR <60), with a significantly higher proportion in patients with comorbid diabetes (42.7% vs 26.0%, p<0.001).
Given Ballarat Base Hospital is the main referral centre for a catchment area of approximately 48,000 km, the investigators said their data on prevalence rates of diabetes in stroke was likely a good representation of regional Australia.
“Our data also serves to highlight the importance of appropriate long-term diabetic control in the primary prevention of stroke,” they said.