Comment on “Assessment of left atrial function by strain in patients with acute ischemic stroke left atrial function and acute stroke”

Dear Editor,

We were glad to read the interesting study published by Unal Ozturk et al.¹ They found that left atrial longitudinal strain is associated with stroke severity during admission in patients with acute ischemic stroke. Although they found a series of evidence about the relationship between left atrial strain function and ischemic stroke, there are some issues that should be further discussed.

To begin with, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between left atrium myocardium and tissue function in patients with acute ischemic stroke, so the title “Assessment of left atrial function by strain in patients with acute ischemic stroke left atrial function and acute stroke” should be changed to “Assessment of left atrial function by strain in patients with acute ischemic stroke and acute stroke.” In the method part of the summary, the statistical analysis should be described in detail, including the statistical software SPSS version 12.0 used in this study and the corresponding statistical methods, such as Mann-Whitney U test and the chi-square test, which were used appropriately for comparing data.

Furthermore, the normal distribution test of the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale and the longitudinal strain of the left atrium should be conducted. The distribution of the data is an important base for the selection of statistical methods; however, the author does not give the normality test of the above score. In Table 1 of the results section, the authors should offer the exact statistics value, for example, Student's t-test value or chi-square value. In addition, the authors did not estimate the sample size and directly used clinical cases as the research object, which may lead to selection bias in the results which in turn affects the accuracy of the conclusions.

Finally, the general demographic characteristics of the subjects in the second paragraph of the discussion section, such as age, gender, and place of residence should be described. The study aimed to evaluate the relationship between left atrial longitudinal strain and acute ischemic stroke; however, the conclusion section failed to give the applicable age. Therefore, we suggest adding the scope of application of this conclusion in the discussion section.

• Funding: none.

REFERENCE

• ¹
  Ozturk U, Ozturk O. Assessment of left atrial function by strain in patients with acute ischemic stroke left atrial function and acute stroke. Rev Assoc Med Bras. 2021;67(1):71-76. https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.67.01.20200303
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/1806-9282.67.01.20200303

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  13 Dec 2021
• Date of issue
  Nov 2021

History

• Received
  27 July 2021
• Accepted
  28 July 2021