The factors associated with cerebral infarction and mortality in patients hospitalized with intracardiac thrombus are unknown. A retrospective cohort study was undertaken of nationally representative hospital admissions in the National Inpatient Sample with a diagnosis of intracardiac thrombus between 2016 to 2019. Multiple logistic regressions were used to define factors associated with cerebral infarction and in-hospital mortality. There were a total of 175,370 admissions for patients with intracardiac thrombus and 10.1% patients had cerebral infarction (n = 17,675). Intracardiac thrombus represented 4.4% of primary diagnosis for admissions while circulatory conditions (65.4%), infection (5.9%), gastrointestinal conditions (4.4%), respiratory conditions (4.4%) and cancer (2.2%) were the other prevalent primary diagnoses. All-cause mortality was higher for patients with cerebral infarction (8.5% vs 4.8%). The five factors most associated with cerebral infarction were nephrotic syndrome (OR 2.67 95%CI 1.05-6.78), other thrombophilia (OR 2.12 95%CI 1.52-2.95), primary thrombophilia (OR 1.99 95%CI 1.52-2.53), previous stroke (OR 1.61 95%CI 1.47-1.75) and hypertension (OR 1.41 95%CI 1.27-1.56). The strongest independent predictors of death were heparin induced thrombocytopenia (OR 2.45 95%CI 150-4.00), acute venous thromboembolism (OR 2.03 95%CI 1.78-2.33, p < 0.001) acute myocardial infarction (OR 1.95 95%CI 1.72-2.22), arterial thrombosis (OR 1.75 95%CI 1.39-2.20) and cancer (OR 1.57 95%CI 1.36-1.81). Patients with intracardiac thrombus are at risk of cerebral infarction and in-hospital mortality. Nephrotic syndrome, thrombophilia, previous stroke, hypertension, and heparin induced thrombocytopenia were associated with cerebral infarction, while acute venous thromboembolism, acute myocardial infarction, and cancer were predictors of mortality.
Keywords: Intracardiac thrombus; Mortality; Stroke.
© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.