European Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine

Stroke is an abrupt onset of a neurological deficit attributable to a focal vascular cause. Globally, it is one of the leading causes of death and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) as per the estimates from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (1).Red blood cell distribution width (RDW) may be a potential biomarker of inflammation in patients with stroke. Elevated RDW is associated with higher incidence of stroke, unfavourable functional outcome, and increased mortality(2). Aims and objectives of this study are to study the RED CELL DISTRIBUTION WIDTH in relation to stroke in Medicine department and to correlate the severity of stroke with RDW in patients of acute ischemic stroke. This was an observational cross sectional study conducted at Mallareddy hospital , in which 50 patients with acute stroke were included in study. Red cell Distribution Width(RDW) was measured for cases and patients were divided into four groups  - minor, moderate, moderate to severe, severe stroke based on NIHSS. RDW was measured for patients and compared among the four groups. Data collected was entered into MS EXCEL and analysed with IBM – SPSS version 20.0, p value, chi square test was done and its significance noted. In our study, mean age group is 56.04 years. About 70% are male and 30% are female. About 32% belong to NIHSS grade minor, 24% belong to moderate, 18% belong to moderate to severe, 26% belong to severe grade. The mean RDW in the patients with minor stroke was 38.06, moderate stroke was 45.04, and moderate to severe stroke was 47.42 and with severe stroke was 51.47 (p < 0.001).