Public release date: 9-May-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Stephanie Burns sburns@bmjgroup.com 44-020-738-36920 BMJ-British Medical Journal
Higher volume endovascular stroke centers have faster times to treatment, higher reperfusion rates and higher rates of good clinical outcomes Online First doi 10.1136/neurintsurg-2011-010245
Treatment is faster and outcomes are better at stroke centres dealing with a high volume of patients, finds research published online in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery.
The authors base their findings on 442 patients treated with endovascular therapyclot busting treatment provided inside the brain via a catheter without the need for surgeryat nine specialist (tertiary) stroke centres between September 2009 and July 2011.
All the patients, whose average age was 66, arrived at the centres within eight hours of the start of their symptoms. They all had a blood clot in a major brain artery, which had cut off blood supply and caused their stroke.
The researchers collected information on age and sex, and risk factors likely to affect the success of treatment, such as high blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms (atrial fibrillation), diabetes, and high cholesterol.
They also looked at other key factors, including the size and location of the clot, the time taken before treatment was given, and how quickly blood flow was restored (reperfusion).
The data showed that the average time to the start of treatmentinsertion of a catheter through the groinafter a CT scan of the brain, and injection of the clot buster drug into the affected artery, to completion of the procedure, was 95 minutes, on average.
The researchers then looked at whether the stroke centres were high volume facilities, defined as carrying out more than 50 such procedures a year.
Read more here:
Speedier treatment and better outcomes for high volume stroke centers