Silent cerebral infarction: a potential risk for pneumonia in the elderly.
OBJECTIVE
To determine whether patients who have silent cerebral infarction are more likely to develop pneumonia than are controls without silent cerebral infarction.


METHODS
We examined 269 community-residing participants of the senior day-care centre without history of previous stroke, and then followed them over a two-year period to assess pneumonia. On the basis of computerized tomography scans, they were divided into two groups: no infarction (n = 102) and cerebral hemispheric infarction (n = 167). Cerebral infarcts were further divided into deep and superficial infarcts.


RESULTS
The incidence of pneumonia was significantly higher in subjects with silent cerebral infarction (19.8%) than in controls (4. 9%) (odds ratio, 4.67 [95% CI, 1.87-11.67]; P < 0.01). Deep infarcts were more closely associated with the incidence of pneumonia (29.1%) than superficial infarcts (7.6%) (odds ratio, 5.00 [CI, 1.91-13.08]; P < 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Elderly subjects with silent cerebral infarction were more likely to develop pneumonia than were controls without silent cerebral infarction. Amongst hemispheric silent cerebral infarcts, those located in the deep brain structures may be an important predictor of the development of pneumonia.
Nakagawa
T
T
Department of Geriatric Medicine, Tohoku University School of Medicine, Sendai 980-8574 Japan.
Sekizawa
K
K
Nakajoh
K
K
Tanji
H
H
Arai
H
H
Sasaki
H
H
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002544:Cerebral Infarction / Q000150:complications* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006707:Homes for the Aged / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011015:Pneumonia, Aspiration / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012307:Risk Factors; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed