Resumen

MAYA ENTENZA, Carlos Manuel; GRONDONA TORRES, Fernando  y  GALLARDO RIOS, Marlene Rosa. Vertebrobasilar territory transient ischemic attacks: clinical evolutive characterization. Rev cubana med [online]. 2006, vol.45, n.2. ISSN 0034-7523.

The verterbrobasilar territory transient ischemic attacks (VBTIAs) are characterized by alternate or bilateral plurisymptomatic clinical pictures. The greatest difficulty of the VBTIAs has been the lack of consensus in the diagnostic criteria, and that's why the interobserver concordance, even among expert neurologists, ranges from 30 to 35 %. These VBTIAs account for 20-40 % of all the TIAs, ending up in severe ictus less frequently than the carothyd TIAs. A prospective study of 325 patients with VBTIAs that received attention at the Neurology Service of “Manuel Fajardo” from January 1992 to October 1999 was conducted to study the clinical evolutive characteristics of patients with VBTIAs . The following parameters were evaluated: age, sex, chief complaint, symptoms referred, time elapsed from the first episode, number of attacks and final state of the sick. It was observed that the average age of the patients was 62.5 ( ± 22.7) years old. There was a mild predominance of females. The follow-up of the patients was between 8 and 90 months with an average of 48.9 months. Vertigo was the most common chief complaint, since it was referred by 150 patients (43 %). Visual symptoms were observed in 232 patients (71.4 %). 96.7 % of the patients had more than one ischemic episode. It was proved that 180 (55.4 %) patients were asymptomatic at the end of the study, 49 (15 %) died and the main casuse of death was myocardial infarction. It was concluded that there exists a predominance of patients over 60 with VBTIAs. The clinical picture is plurisymptomatic. The recurrence of attacks is characteristic when they are not treated.

Palabras clave : Transitory ischemic attack (TIA); severe ictus; myocardial infarction; ictus risk.