Epidemiology of cerebrovascular disease in Korea: a Collaborative Study, 1989-1990. Korean Neurological Association

We present epidemiologic, etiologic, and clinical data for 3,021 patients with cerebrovascular disease admitted to the 17 regional hospital centers from all over Korea from 1989 to 1990. Each case was coded retrospectively into a computerized registry using a standard protocol. This study was conducted to provide baseline data on recent patterns on cerebrovascular disease in Korea and to evaluate any temporal trends compared with previous reports. It is the largest hospital-based study and gives a rough estimate of the current stroke profiles in Korea. Although there might be some selection bias in several hospitals, the distribution of cases by type of stroke was: thrombosis (27.2%), lacular infarction (11.2%), transient ischemic attack (3.0%), embolism (7.0%), intracerebral hemorrhage (31.4%), subarachnoid hemorrhage (18.0%), intraventricular hemorrhage (1.5%), and others (0.7%). The overall incidence rate of cerebral thrombotic strokes (41.1%) was higher than that of intracerebral hemorrhage (31.4%) which was the reverse in most of previous reports before 1980s. This study suggests a changing trend of stroke patterns in Korea and a multicenter prospective study using more complete registry protocols is required for an accurate evaluation.