Objectives: To review the evidence for an association of white matter hyperintensities with risk of stroke, cognitive decline, dementia, and death. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Study selection: Prospective longitudinal studies that used magnetic resonance imaging and assessed the impact of white matter hyperintensities on risk of incident stroke, cognitive decline, dementia, and death, and, for the meta-analysis, studies that provided risk estimates for a categorical measure of white matter hyperintensities, assessing the impact of these lesions on risk of stroke, dementia, and death.
Data extraction: Population studied, duration of follow-up, the method used to measure white matter hyperintensities, the definition of the outcome, and the measure of the association of white matter hyperintensities with the outcome. Data synthesis: 46 longitudinal studies evaluated the…
