Antihypertensive Drugs Affect the Association of Systolic Blood Pressure Variability with Outcomes in Patients with Acute Stroke who had Successful Recanalization after Endovascular Treatment

<p> Aims: Blood pressure variability (BPV) was associated with the clinical outcomes in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) due to large-vessel occlusion (LVO) after endovascular treatment (EVT). This study aimed to investigate whether the use of antihypertensive drugs could affect this association in patients with AIS-LVO after EVT.</p><p>Methods: We retrospectively screened consecutive patients with AIS-LVO who had successful recanalization after EVT and calculated their systolic BPV (SBPV) during the first 24 h after EVT using eight statistical methodologies based on previously published literature. Poor outcome was defined as a modified Rankin Scale score of 3–6 at 90 days. Logistic regression analysis was performed to assess this association, and different prediction models were constructed to assess the effect of the use of antihypertensive drugs.</p><p>Results: A total of 214 patients were finally included, including 92 (43.0%) with good outcomes, and 136 (63.6%) who received antihypertensive drugs. SBPV indicators were significantly lower in patients with good outcomes versus those with poor outcomes. The logistic analysis showed that all SBPV indicators were consistently associated with poor outcomes (odds ratio, 1.031–1.282, all P＜0.05) in all populations, which was confirmed in patients not using antihypertensive drugs. However, no SBPV indicator was found to be associated with poor outcomes in patients using antihypertensive drugs. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that the area under the curve (AUC) was larger in the model adjusting for antihypertensive drugs (AUC 0.774–0.783) compared with the one not adjusted for antihypertensive drugs (AUC 0.739–0.754).</p><p>Conclusion: In the anterior circulation of patients with AIS-LVO who had successful recanalization after EVT, the utilization of antihypertensive drugs may have some impact on the relationship between SBPV and clinical outcomes.</p>