Abstract
Many hospitals are still setting up acute stroke thrombolysis services, often delayed by fears over workload. However, there are few data on how many patients require urgent assessment before one is treated.
We prospectively studied all referrals to the 24-hour stroke thrombolysis service, February 2009 - January 2010, in Southampton General Hospital.
128 patients were referred to the thrombolysis team and 20 received thrombolysis. The most common reasons for treatment exclusion were: stroke severity (37%), time from onset (26%) or CT findings (15%).
Approximately six patients required urgent assessment by the thrombolysis team for every one treated. These data are crucial to inform service planning.
[download-attachments container="div" style="list" display_icon="1" display_count="1" display__size="0"]
References
- Lees KR, Ford GA, Muir KW et al; Thrombolytic therapy for acute stroke in the United Kingdom: experience from the safe implementation of thrombolysis in stroke (SITS) register. Q J Med 2008; 101: 863–869.
- Kwan J, Hand P, Sandercock P; A systematic review of barriers to delivery of thrombolysis for acute stroke. Age and Aging 2004; 33: 116–121.
- Muir KW and Baird T; Set up and run a thrombolysis service for acute stroke. Pract Neurol 2010; 10: 145–151.
- Weir NU and Buchan AM; A study of the workload and effectiveness of a comprehensive acute stroke service. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2005; 76: 863–865.
- McCormick MT, Reeves I, Baird T et al; Implementation of a stroke thrombolysis service within a tertiary neurosciences centre in the United Kingdom. Q J Med 2008; 101: 291–298.
- Nor AM, Davis J, Sen B et al; The Recognition of Stroke in the Emergency Room (ROSIER) scale: development and validation of a stroke recognition instrument. Lancet Neurol 2005; 4: 727–734.
- Ahmed N, Wahlgren N, Grond M et al; Implementation and outcome of thrombolysis with alteplase 3—4·5 h after an acute stroke: an updated analysis from SITS-ISTR. Lancet Neurol 2010; Epub ahead of print.
- Ringleb PA, Schellinger PD, Schranz C, Hacke W; Thrombolytic Therapy Within 3 to 6 Hours After Onset of Ischemic Stroke Useful or Harmful? Stroke 2002; 33: 1437–1441.
Request Permissions
To request copyright permission to republish or share portions of our works, please visit Copyright Clearance Center’s (CCC) Marketplace website by clicking the button below:
