Abstract T P20: Rate of Endovascular Ischemic Stroke Treatment Increases with Onsite Rather than Regional Capabilities
Introduction: Currently in the US, hospitals with Neuro-Interventional capabilities represent a small proportion of all acute care facilities, and most hospitals rely on regional transfers for these services. At the same time, it is known, that having to transfer patients for Neuro-interventional stroke therapy (NIST) decreases the rate of offering this therapy, because of the time lost in the transfer process. Objective: We sought to compare the rates of NIST being offered to patients after the inception of these services on-site, compared with the prior calendar year. Methods: All patients presenting with neurological disturbance within 4.5 hours with a National Institutes of Health Stroke score (NIHSSS) >/= 4 undergo emergent non contrast head computed tomography (CT) and CT angiography (CTA). All patients who have no contra-indications to systemic thrombolysis receive intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV tPA) and in addition, those with large vessel occlusion on CTA are offered NIST. Results: A total of 333 patients were admitted with the diagnosis of ischemic stroke (IS) in 2013. Of these 15 (4.3%) patients were transferred for NIST of which 9 received IV tPA and 6 did not. In addition, 2 patients were declined for NIST by regional centers and 2 who were transferred were unable to undergo NIST due to CT changes upon transfer. In the calendar year 2014 to date (8.5 months), among 225 IS patients, 21 (9.3%) were offered NIST, including 1 patient who was transferred from a neighboring facility. All patients offered treatment, underwent treatment. Among the 21 patients, 1 had spontaneous recanalization, another had a distal stenosis but no occlusion, and in 3, the target lesion could not be reached for intervention due to proximal carotid occlusion. Among these patients the mean initial NIHSSS was 20 and mean NIHSSS at discharge was 10. No patients experienced symptomatic hemorrhage, and one patient expired due to malignant ischemic swelling. Conclusion: Having on-site NI capabilities doubled our rate of offering NIST. Such data may factor into a hospital’s gap analysis as to its need for NIST. Further analysis is needed to assess whether our experience of significant decline in discharge NIHSSS corresponds to long-term good functional outcome.