Purpose Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is one of the markers of visceral adioposity, associated with inflammation and correlated with major adverse cardiovascular event. Also, EAT is easy to measure on the bedside. We assessed whether EAT could be a prognostic factor in acute ischemic stroke patients.
Methods In all, 98 patients with ischemic stroke who admitted at the Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH) between May 2016 and June 2016 consecutively, who performed Echocardiography during the admission were enrolled. We measured an epicardial adipose tissue thickness on the free wall of the right ventricle in end-diastole. And we defined poor functional outcome as modified Rankin Scale (mRS) 3-6. Data were collected retrospectively at the SNUH.
Results Among the total patients, 63.3% were male, with a mean age of 69.2 years. Seventy three (74.5%) patients showed good functional outcome (mRS 0,1,2) and twenty five (25.5%) were poor functional outcome (mRS 3-6) after 3 months of stroke. The patients with poor outcome tended to be lower body weight (65.36 vs 60.42 ; p=0.028). Higher epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) thickness had a tendency to be associated with a poor functional outcome after 3 months, but not statistically significant (6.68 vs 8.40 ; p=0.07).
Conclusion Higher epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) thickness is a possible prognostication factor of the acute ischemic stroke. EAT thickness can be a useful tool for the prognostication of the acute ischemic stroke.

Epicardial adipose tissue thickness and a short-term functional outcome in the acute ischemic stroke