Evaluation of spexin levels in patients diagnosed with acute ischemic stroke in the emergency department

According to the World Health Organization, stroke is a rapidly developing focal or global disorder of cerebral functions that lasts longer than 24 hours and has no apparent cause other than vascular causes that can result in death. Stroke is one of the most important causes of disability and mortality in all societies. Although the incidence of stroke has decreased by 42% in high-income countries in thelast 40 years, it is note worthy that this rate has increased by 100% in low-income countries. It is known that effective and reliable treatments have been widely used in the treatment of ischemic stroke in the last 20 years. Studies have found that 67% of strokes are ischemic stroke, 6.5% are cerebral hemorrhage, 0.8% are subarachnoid hemorrhage , and the cause of 2% has not been found. The incidence of stroke has increased due to the increasing age of the population. Risk factors for stroke include hypertension, diabetes mellitus, atrial fibrillation, hyperlipidemia, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Acute ischemic stroke is an emergency. In acute ischemic stroke, it is of great importance that the treatments used are applied as soon as possible after the symptoms begin in order to be more effective. Since time is an important factor, the prehospital evaluation and follow-up of patients with a preliminary diagnosis of stroke are critical for the effectiveness of revascularization treatments. The main treatment methods applied, intravenous thrombolysis and mechanical thrombectomy, are treatments with a degree of effectiveness that is time dependent. The aim of our study was to investigate the role of serum Spexin level as a new biomarker in the diagnosis and severity of ischemic stroke by measuring serum Spexin levels in patients diagnosed with acute ischemic stroke in the emergency department and in the control group and comparing these levels with scores. Our study was conducted as a single-center, cross-sectional clinical study on patients who applied to the Adult Emergency Department of Trakya University Health Research and Application Center between May 15, 2024 and July 1, 2024. 50 patients and 25 volunteers who applied to the emergency department were included in the study. The participants in the patient group were divided into two groups as 25 people with national instutes of health stroke scale between 1-4 and 25 people with national instutes of health stroke scale between 5-20. As a result of the statistical analysis, it was found that the spexin value showed good performance in distinguishing between sick and healthy individuals.