RCT: Endovascular treatment for acute ischaemic stroke

Source: NEJM Area: News A study, published in New England Journal of Medicine, compares the clinical efficacy of endovascular treatment with systemic intravenous thrombolytic therapy in patients with ischaemic stroke.   The study randomly assigned 362 patients with acute ischemic stroke, within 4.5 hours after onset, to endovascular therapy (intra-arterial thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator [t-PA], mechanical clot disruption or retrieval, or a combination of these approaches) (181 patients) or intravenous t-PA (181 patients). Treatments were to be given as soon as possible after randomisation. The primary outcome was survival free of disability (defined as a modified Rankin score of 0 or 1 on a scale of 0 to 6, with 0 indicating no symptoms, 1 no clinically significant disability despite symptoms, and 6 death) at 3 months. The median time from stroke onset to the start of treatment was 3.75 hours for endovascular therapy and 2.75 hours for intravenous t-PA (P<0.001). ...
Source: NeLM - News - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Source Type: news