Outcomes After Endovascular Thrombectomy With or Without Alteplase in Routine Clinical Practice.

Abstract

Importance

The effectiveness and safety of intravenous alteplase given before or concurrently with endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) is uncertain. Randomized clinical trials suggest there is little difference in outcomes but with only modest precision and insufficient power to analyze uncommon outcomes including symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH).

Objective

To determine whether 8 prespecified outcomes are different in patients with acute ischemic stroke treated in routine clinical practice with EVT with alteplase compared with patients treated with EVT alone without alteplase. It was hypothesized that alteplase would be associated with higher risk of sICH.

Design, setting, and participants

This was an observational cohort study conducted from February 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, that included adult patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with EVT within 6 hours of time last known well, after excluding patients without information on discharge destination and patients with in-hospital stroke. Participants were recruited from Get With The Guidelines-Stroke, a large nationwide registry of patients with acute ischemic stroke from 555 hospitals in the US.

Exposures

Intravenous alteplase or no alteplase.

Main outcomes and measures

Prespecified outcomes were discharge destination, independent ambulation at discharge, modified Rankin score at discharge, discharge mortality, cerebral reperfusion according to modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction grade, and sICH.

Results

There were 15 832 patients treated with EVT (median [IQR] age, 72.0 [61.0-82.0] years; 7932 women [50.1%]); 10 548 (66.7%) received alteplase and 5284 (33.4%) did not. Patients treated with alteplase were younger, arrived via Emergency Medical Services sooner, were less likely to have certain comorbidities, including atrial fibrillation, hypertension, and diabetes, but had similar National Institutes of Health Stroke Severity (NIHSS) scores. Compared with patients who did not receive alteplase treatment, patients treated with alteplase were less likely to die (11.1% [1173 of 10 548 patients] vs 13.9% [734 of 5284 patients]; adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.83; 95% CI, 0.77-0.89; P < .001), more likely to have no major disability based on modified Rankin scale of 2 or less at discharge (28.5% [2415 of 8490 patients] vs 20.7% [894 of 4322 patients]; aOR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.28-1.45; P < .001), and to have better reperfusion based on modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction grade 2b or greater (90.9% [8474 of 9318 patients] vs 88.0% [4140 of 4705 patients]; aOR, 1.39; 95% CI, 1.28-1.50; P < .001). However, alteplase treatment was associated with higher risk of sICH (6.5% [685 of 10 530 patients] vs 5.3% [279 of 5249 patients]; OR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.16-1.42; P < .001).

Conclusions and relevance

In this observational cohort study of patients treated with EVT, intravenous alteplase treatment was associated with better in-hospital survival and functional outcomes but higher sICH risk after adjusting for other covariates.

Department

Description

Provenance

Citation

Published Version (Please cite this version)

10.1001/jamaneurol.2022.1413

Publication Info

Smith, Eric E, Charlotte Zerna, Nicole Solomon, Roland Matsouaka, Brian Mac Grory, Jeffrey L Saver, Michael D Hill, Gregg C Fonarow, et al. (2022). Outcomes After Endovascular Thrombectomy With or Without Alteplase in Routine Clinical Practice. JAMA neurology, 79(8). pp. 768–776. 10.1001/jamaneurol.2022.1413 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/31133.

This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.

Scholars@Duke

Solomon

Nicole Solomon

Biostatistician, Senior
Matsouaka

Roland Albert Matsouaka

Associate Professor of Biostatistics & Bioinformatics
Mac Grory

Brian C. Mac Grory

Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Brian Mac Grory, MB BCh BAO, MHSc, MRCP, FAHA, FANA is an Associate Professor of Neurology & Ophthalmology at the Duke University School of Medicine and a Staff Neurologist at Duke University Medical Center. He received his medical degree from University College Dublin in Dublin, Ireland in 2011. After an internship at St. Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin, he completed a neurology residency and vascular neurology fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine/Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. Upon completion of his training, he served for 3 years on the faculty of Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital before being recruited to Duke University in 2020.

His clinical practice encompasses both vascular and general neurology in the emergency, inpatient, outpatient, and telemedicine settings. He has a particular clinical interest in central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO or "eye stroke") and has developed a center of excellence for the treatment of this condition at Duke. He led the development of the first ever American Heart Association (AHA) scientific consensus statement on the management of CRAO which was endorsed by six professional medical societies in the United States representing neurology, neurosurgery, cardiology, ophthalmology, neuro-ophthalmology, and optometry.

Dr. Mac Grory has published over 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles appearing in JAMABritish Medical Journal, Circulation, StrokeAnnals of Neurology, JAMA Neurology, and Neurology. His research on retinal vascular disease is funded by the National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (K23 HL161426), the AHA (23MRFSCD1077188), and the Duke Office of Physician-Scientist Development (FRCS #2835124). Additionally, he serves as Clinical Lead for the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Data Analytic Program at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and Associate Program Director for the vascular neurology fellowship program at Duke. His research has been recognized with the Stroke Progress and Innovation Award, Stroke Care in Emergency Medicine Award, and Early Career Investigator Award from the AHA/American Stroke Association. He is a member of the AHA's Stroke Systems of Care Advisory Group, the Stroke Emergency Neurovascular Care Committee, and the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom (MRCP(UK)). 

Ying Xian

Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology

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