A study on endovascular treatment alone and bridging treatment for acute ischemic stroke

Abstract

Abstract Objectives To investigate whether intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) with alteplase (a recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, rt-PA) before endovascular treatment (EVT) is beneficial for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients in different periods. Methods This study enrolled a total of 140 patients hospitalized between 2019 and 2022 with AIS from large vessel occlusion (LVO) in the anterior circulation. Those patients were divided into the EVT alone group and IVT + EVT group, in which EVT was preceded by intravenous rt-PA. According to the time from onset to femoral artery puncture, the above two groups were divided into the following subgroups: 0.05). After adjusting for confounding factors, a lower incidence of intracerebral hemorrhage was observed in the EVT group (P < 0.05). A comparison of time-dependent efficacy between the two groups showed that within 6–8 h, there were statistically significant differences between admission and postoperation in the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores at 24 h (P = 0.01) or 7 days (P = 0.02). Conclusions Although there was no difference in clinical efficacy and safety between the abovementioned two groups, treatment with IVT + EVT could increase the risk of bleeding compared to EVT. Moreover, in the 6–8 h subgroup, the efficacy of EVT alone was better than that of IVT + EVT.

Keywords

• Artificial intelligence
• Endovascular treatment
• Mechanical thrombectomy
• Bridging treatment
• Acute ischemic stroke