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Review
. 2025 Feb;20(2):132-144.
doi: 10.1177/17474930241308142. Epub 2025 Jan 3.

World Stroke Organization: Global Stroke Fact Sheet 2025

Valery L Feigin  1 , Michael Brainin  2 , Bo Norrving  3 , Sheila O Martins  4 , Jeyaraj Pandian  5 , Patrice Lindsay  6 , Maria F Grupper  7 , Ilari Rautalin  1   8
Affiliations
Review

World Stroke Organization: Global Stroke Fact Sheet 2025

Valery L Feigin et al. Int J Stroke. 2025 Feb.

Abstract

Background: Among non-communicable disorders (NCDs), stroke remains the second leading cause of death and the third leading cause of death and disability combined (as expressed by disability-adjusted life-years lost-DALYs) in the world.

Aims: The study was aimed to estimate global, regional and nationa burden of stroke and its risk factors from 1990 to 2021.

Methods: Finding presented in this paper were derived mainly from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 Study on stroke burden published in The Lancet Neurology 2024:23:973-1003.

Results: The estimated global cost of stroke is over US$890 billion (0.66% of the global GDP). From 1990 to 2021, the burden (in terms of the absolute number of cases) increased substantially (70.0% increase in incident strokes, 44.0% deaths from stroke, 86.0% prevalent strokes, and 32% DALYs), with the bulk of the global stroke burden (87.0% of deaths and 89.0% of DALYs) residing in lower-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMICs). Stroke attributable to metabolic risks constituted 69.0% of all strokes, environmental risks constituted 37.0%, and behavioral risks constituted 35.0%.

Conclusion: This World Stroke Organization (WSO) Global Stroke Fact Sheet 2025 provides the most updated information that can be used to inform communication with all internal and external stakeholders; all statistics have been reviewed and approved for use by the WSO Executive Committee and leaders from the Global Burden of Disease research group.

Keywords: Stroke; incidence; mortality; prevalence; statistics; transient ischemic attack.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interestThe author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: V.L.F. declares that free Stroke Riskometer app and PreventS-MD are owned and copyrighted by PreventS-MD Ltd (a spin-off of the Auckland University of Technology Ventures Ltd), he is a Chief Scientific Adviser and shareholder of. B.N. has received honoraria for Data Safaty and Monitoring Board work for the HOVID trial (Simbec-Orion). None of the other authors declared any conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Infographics of stroke burden and risk factors in the world.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Time for a revolution in stroke care.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
A collaborative policy agenda for better stroke care.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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