Wider Intracranial Arteries, Not Cranial Arterial Stenosis, Track With Lacunar Stroke and Cerebral Small-Vessel Disease

Highlights

In this prospective cohort of patients with lacunar or mild nonlacunar stroke, large-artery stenosis of at least 50% was associated with lower odds of lacunar stroke and showed no meaningful association with MRI markers of cerebral small-vessel disease.

By contrast, basilar artery dolichoectasia and wider intracranial arteries were strongly associated with lacunar stroke phenotype, greater total cSVD burden, incident infarcts during follow-up, and progression of white matter hyperintensities over 1 year.