Relationship of cardiac disease to stroke occurrence, recurrence, and mortality.

This is a study of cardiac diseases associated with the 1,382 cases of first cerebral infarction in residents of Rochester, Minn., during 1960-1984.This is a population-based study in Rochester, Minn., for which the medical record-linkage system was used to identify cardiac disease among patients with first cerebral infarction.There were 318 patients (23%) who had at least one major potential cardiac source of emboli. The proportion of patients with a cardiac source of emboli was significantly higher among patients older than age 75 years (29%) than among younger patients (17%). The 30-day stroke recurrence rate among patients with a cardiac source of emboli (2%) was not significantly different than that among those without a cardiac source of emboli (2%). Among patients with a cardiac source of emboli, there was no difference in the probability of stroke at 30 days and at 90 days for those treated or not treated with anticoagulants. During the first 30 days after cerebral infarction, the risk of death in...