Comment: Well-organized stroke service reduces the burden of stroke

The idea, presented here, that emergency medical services transporting acute stroke patients should bypass hospitals without stroke units (SUs) and experience in IV stroke thrombolysis (IVT) is not new, but now it is based on evidence.1 Hospitals without SU and experience in stroke IVT treated fewer potential thrombolysis candidates than experienced stroke centers (SCs). This was the case in patients over 80 years of age and those with preexisting disabilities, although patients treated at SCs with IVT had equally low mortality as the rest of the IVT-treated patients.1 The finding that patients treated off-label with IVT had as good functional outcome as those treated according to labeling tallies with earlier results of centralized stroke care at SCs.2 The present study verified also that at SCs it is possible to provide IVT safely to a larger proportion of stroke patients1 and is concordant with earlier observations that at well-organized SCs it is possible to shorten the door-to-needle time and so to provide IVT to a larger proportion of stroke patients.3
Source: Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: All Cerebrovascular disease/Stroke ARTICLE Source Type: research