Isolated Broca's area aphasia and ischemic stroke mechanism.

Cerebral embolism has been considered to be the most common stroke mechanism when the resulting stroke has at least some amount of aphasia as part of its clinical manifestations. To determine stroke mechanism and risk factor profile in patients with isolated Broca's area aphasia (Broca's infarct), we studied 34 consecutive patients with recent infarcts whose only or predominant clinical feature was that of nonfluent speech and compared these cases with 68 control patients with cortical infarcts in the middle cerebral artery distribution whose clinical features were not restricted to an isolated aphasia. Controls were age- and sex-matched and were selected from ischemic infarcts seen at our institutions over the same observation period.

Aspirin "failures," clopidogrel added to aspirin, and secondary stroke prevention in veterans presenting with TIA or mild-to-moderate ischemic stroke.

Our objective was to investigate whether clopidogrel added to low-dose aspirin reduced vascular events in male patients at our VA hospital who had "failed" aspirin therapy because of a mild-to-moderate stroke or a transient ischemic attack. Of 179 consecutive patients who both reported daily aspirin usage at the time of their newest ischemic event as well as were then operationally defined as aspirin "failures," 134 (group A) were treated with combined aspirin-clopidogrel, 15 (group B) underwent an early arterial procedure, 25 (group C) were anticoagulated, and 5 were not entered or continued because of either non-compliance or a refusal to participate. Study therapies were modified because of a vascular event in 4.