الفهرس 
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Abstract
Early predictors of mortality and poor functional outcome are crucial for planning the level of care and optimizing resource utilization. Nonetheless, rapid and noninvasive methods for assessing the prognosis of patients with acute hemorrhagic stroke in the emergency department (ED) are currently lacking.
Acute intracranial pathology may signal a variety of electrocardiographic (ECG) abnormalities, including QT interval prolongation. A significant increase in ECG alterations, characterized by ST-segment and QT interval alterations, as well as a higher incidence of ventricular arrhythmias, including ventricular fibrillation in patients with acute stroke which has been observed in acute intra cranial pathology.
The aim of this work is to assess and evaluate the QT-prolongation in patients with acute stroke without known cardiac disease and to correlate between prolonged QT interval and different neurological outcomes.
This was a case control study. Data from patients with acute ischemic stroke (stroke patients) who were admitted to the neurological intensive care unit were collected for the period from June 2021 to December 2021 at the First Affiliated Ahmad Maher teaching hospital, and patients in other departments were enrolled as controls.
Patients were enrolled if they had an episode of first acute ischemic stroke and presented within the first 24 hours of symptom onset. The diagnosis of ischemic stroke was confirmed by computed tomography (CT) scanning or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
This study had several limitations. First, the study was performed in a single center, which may reduce its generalizability. In addition, we were unable to determine non-fatal long-term outcomes, such as major adverse cerebro-cardiovascular events (MACCE). Second, the mechanism underlying QTc interval prolongation remains tentative because ECG was performed at single time points, not overtime. Furthermore, major cardiac and non-cardiac comorbidities were defined as the previous history and/or ECG results at admission, thus possibly underestimating subclinical conditions. In addition, the contribution of each cardiac and non-cardiac condition to QTc interval prolongation is not equally the same. We also could not absolutely exclude patients with coronary artery disease who shared similar risk factors because we did not conduct echocardiography or coronary angiography, and this may have affected the QTc interval changes in ECG.