Cardiologists Can Perform Stroke Thrombectomy to Fill Unmet Need medscape.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from medscape.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
April 08, 2021
It’s possible to start a successful stroke thrombectomy program in an experienced cardiac cath lab when cardiologists, neurologists, and radiologists work together closely, the experience at a single center in Prague, Czech Republic, suggests.
In the 7 years after the program launched, the team achieved outcomes similar to those seen in randomized trials conducted at experienced stroke thrombectomy centers, lead author Jakub Sulženko, MD, PhD (Charles University and University Hospital Kralovske Vinohrady), and colleagues report.
A good functional outcome defined as a modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score of 0 to 2 at 90 days was observed in 47.9% of patients, right around the 46% rate from a meta-analysis of five randomized stroke thrombectomy trials. There did not appear to be a learning curve.
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Establishing an endovascular therapy (EVT) program at a cardiology cath lab could be done with a minimal learning curve if operators had prior experience with carotid stenting, one tertiary university hospital reported.
The program, started in 2012 with the addition of an experienced interventional radiologist as lead operator, had stroke patients achieve good clinical outcomes at 90 days in 47.9% of cases.
Importantly, the distribution in modified Rankin Scale (mRS) scores stayed stable every year through 2019, according to Jakub Sulenko, MD, PhD, of Charles University and University Hospital Kralovske Vinohrady in Prague, Czech Republic, and colleagues in the PRAGUE-16 group. When a catheter-based thrombectomy program was initiated in an experienced cardiac cath lab in close cooperation between cardiologists, neurologists, and radiologists, outcomes were comparable to those of neuroradiology centers, Sulenko and colleagues concluded in