Risk factors predicting recurrence of transient global amnesia

To assess risk factors of transient global amnesia (TGA) recurrence.

Retrospective study of a case series of patients with the diagnosis of TGA in our neurology center in the last 8 years, identified through an anonymized database search. TGA was identified by applying Hodges and Warlow criteria.

Seventy patients (70% female, average age 64.8 ± 7.8 years) were enrolled; mean follow-up was 16.5 months. More frequent co-morbidities were hypertension (50%), depression (25.7%), diabetes mellitus (17.1%), migraine (15.7%), and cerebrovascular disease (8.6%). Average TGA episode duration was 4 h. Forty-one percent had an identifiable trigger—emotional stress (25.7%), physical effort (8.6%), and sexual intercourse (4.3%). Five patients (7.1%) had hippocampus restriction on diffusion weighted MRI. Nineteen patients (27.1%) had TGA recurrence. Patients with recurrent TGA were more likely to be female and have history of depression, shorter duration episode, and hippocampus hyperintensity on brain MRI. None of the other clinical characteristics and complementary studies were predictors of recurrence. In the multivariate analysis, history of depression was the only factor found to predict which patients had a higher risk of recurrence.

We present a cohort of TGA patients with a considerable recurrent rate (27%), alerting for the possibility of recurrence of this clinical entity. TGA recurrence was associated with the following factors: female sex, depression, shorter episode duration, and hippocampal hyperintensity on brain MRI. History of depression was found to be the most important recurrence predictor in our study.