Incidence of Death from Stroke and Brains of Stroke Victim Cadavers in Northern Thailand

Abstract Stroke is a leading cause of death in Thailand. However, there are varying numbers of regional stroke patients. This study aims to report the ranking of stroke as the cause of death in Northern Thai cadavers and to investigate the brains of stroke victim cadavers. A retrograde study was used to obtain data about cadavers and gross examinations were performed on the brains of the stroke victim cadavers housed in the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University in the years 2019-2020. The results showed that death from stroke among the cadavers in the Northern Thailand increased during 2016-2018. Stroke was ranked as the fourth and fifth leading cause of death. The stroke victims were primarily aged over 60 years. The incidence of stroke in males was significantly higher than that of females. Approximately 92.7% of total stroke brains were the intracerebral hemorrhagic type stroke. About 41.7% of the intracerebral hemorrhagic brains had occurred with intraventricular hemorrhage and 16.7% of those occurred with subarachnoid hemorrhage. The hemorrhagic sizes varied from 5.66 to 260.43 ml. The territories of the cortical branches of the middle cerebral artery were the most common hemorrhages, making up 22.9% of total vascular territories. In conclusion, stroke was the fourth and fifth leading cause of death in the self-donated population in the Northern Thailand. Intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke was the main cause the death. Additionally, the vascular territories of the stroke might be related to the likelihood of death. Keywords: Stroke, Cerebrovascular disease, Cadavers, Intracerebral hemorrhage, Northern Thailand