Strokes caused by an artery tear are landing five times as many Americans in the hospital these days, a new study says.
Cervical artery dissection involves a small tear in the inner lining of an artery in the neck that supplies blood to the brain.
Blood can clot at the site of the tear. If the clot breaks loose, it can travel to the brain and cause a stroke.
Hospitalizations for this sort of stroke have increased nearly fivefold during the past 15 years, according to findings published April 2 in the journal Neurology.
“Cervical artery dissection is an important cause of stroke, especially in people under 50, so it is crucial to detect it right away,” senior researcher Dr. Shadi Yaghi, a vascular neurologist at Brown University in Providence, R.I., said in a news release.
“Strokes that are not fatal can lead to long-term disability, poor mental health and reduced quality of life,” he said. “Our research found a dramatic increase in the number of hospitalizations for cervical artery dissection, with rates rising steadily year over year.”
These sort of tears in the cervical artery are most often caused by a motor vehicle crash or other accident that causes neck strain, researchers said. However, activities as simple as heavy lifting has been known to cause a cervical artery tear in some people.
For the study, researchers analyzed 15 years of U.S. health data to identify more than 125,000 people hospitalized for cervical artery dissection.
Patients had an average age of 51, and just over half suffered a stroke from their artery tear, results show.
The number of artery tears increased about 10% a year on average, rising from 11 cases per million people in 2005 to 46 cases per million in 2019, results show.
Men and women were equally at risk for suffering an artery tear, but there were differences between races.
Cervical artery dissections increased by 16% a year on average among Hispanic people, compared to 13% for Black people, 12% for Asian people and 8% for white people.
Seniors also have become more prone to these tears, with an average annual increase of 12% among people 65 and older compared to 8% for people under 65, researchers said.
“Possible reasons for this nearly five-fold increase over 15 years include greater awareness of cervical artery dissection by health care professionals, better access to imaging to help identify it and an overall increase in this condition for which a cause has yet to be determined,” Yaghi said.
“Given the rising incidence of cervical artery dissection, our study underscores the importance of finding prevention strategies as well as new treatments to reduce the risk of stroke,” he added.