Abstract

Background: Most hospitals set up Code Stroke alert teams in the Emergency Departments. Expanding sufficient Code Stroke coverage to in-hospital areas requires additional resources, often through Neuro-hospitalist teams. Most data on outcomes after stroke are based on out-of-hospital stroke. We evaluated the outcomes of patients with stroke that occurs in the hospital versus out-of-hospital. Methods: We included all adult patients with Code Stroke alerts, diagnosis of acute ischemic stroke, who had 90-days post Code Stroke modified Rankin Scale from the UCSD SPOTRIAS database (2004 to 2011) and excluded patients transferred from acute care facilities. The patients were grouped into 1: out-of-hospital Code Stroke alerts (EMS or ED) and 2: in-hospital (all inpatient units) and analyzed by baseline demographics, time to treatment decision, frequency of IV tPA use, 90-day modified Rankin Scale (mRS) and adjusted for multiple co-variables. Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (SICH) was defined as ≥4 point increase in NIHSS and ICH that was deemed the cause of the clinical change. Results: We identified 590 Code Stroke alerts; 563 in group 1 and 27 in group 2. Baseline demographics were balanced, except group 2 patients younger (64.26±16 vs 70.2±15.5 years of age, p=0.0497) and were more likely to be Hispanic (29.6 vs 14.2%, p=0.047). IV tPA was given in 13/27 (48.2%) patients in Group 2 and 266/563 (47.3%) in Group 1 (NS). Anticoagulation was the reason for exclusion in 4/14 (28.6%) of patients in Group 2 vs 18/266 (6.5%) (p=0.017). The frequency of other diagnoses and reasons for exclusion were similar between groups. The time from stroke onset to tPA treatment in group 2 was 135.1±57.9 vs 151.4±121.2 min (NS). A 90-day mRS of 0 or 1 was achieved in 9/27 (33.3%) patients in Group 2 and 221/563 (39.3%) patients in Group 1 (NS); in tPA treated patients: Group 2 3/13 (23.1%), Group 1 83/266 (31.2%) (NS). SICH occurred in the tPA treated patients: Group 2 1/13 (7.7%); Group 1 9/266 (3.4%) (NS). Conclusion: We identified a relatively small group of ischemic stroke patients with in-hospital onset. In those patients, however, rates of tPA use and outcomes were similar to out-of-hospital stroke.

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