The Outcome of Treatment With Recombinant Tissue Plasminogen Activator in Acute Ischemic Stroke

Thrombolytic therapy is the recommended treatment of acute ischemic stroke. It is crucial to evaluate the treatment results with recombinant Tissue Plasminogen Activator (r-TPA) in patients with acute stroke.

This study aimed to evaluate treatment outcomes with r-TPA in patients with acute stroke in a referral stroke center in Iran.

In this retrospective study, 87 patients with symptoms of acute stroke were examined. They were referred to a stroke center in Gilan Province, Iran, from June 2016 to April 2020 and received r-TPA (0.9 mg/kg). Demographic information, the time interval between the onset of symptoms and r-TPA administration, complications, and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) upon arrival and discharge and death of patients were extracted from their hospital files. The paired t-test, independent t-test, and Pearson correlation test were used to compare variables using IBM SPSS for Windows version 20.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).

The Mean±SD of NIHSS reduced from 14.7±6.4 to 8.9±7.6 (P<0.001). The most common complication was Intracerebral Hemorrhage (ICH) (12.6%). The hospital mortality rate was 23%. ICH occurred among 40% (n=8) of those who expired, and 4.47% (n=3) of them survived, and this difference was significant (P<0.001).

The recovery with r-TPA administration in the stroke center was acceptable. Mortality and ICH occurrence rates were higher than other non-Iranian studies. It seems that we should change the case selection criteria and prescription dose to achieve better results of treatment with TPA.