Multiple lesions in stroke patients: a study in morbid anatomy.

In a series of 302 autopsies, 47 elderly subjects during life had shown signs or symptoms suggesting cerebrovascular accidents. At autopsy they showed no less than 506 pathologic lesions, an average of 10.7 per patient. Of these lesions, 36.5 percent were cardiovascular, 15.8 percent pulmonary, 11.0 percent renal, 9.0 percent cerebral, 8.3 percent hepatic, 6.5 percent gastrointestinal or pancreatic, 5.0 percent genital, 3.5 percent splenic, and 4.4 percent in other tissues. Multiple autopsy findings are the rule and not the exception in patients of the age group in which strokes are liable to occur.