Abstract
Background: Since publication of the landmark endovascular thrombectomy trials for large vessel occlusion (LVO) ischemic stroke patients, many clinical tools to identify these patients have been developed. In the real world, resource constraints may limit these early activation strategies. Definitive guidelines by the American Heart Association recommending LVO screening tools await studies proving their impact on outcome. We therefore aimed to evaluate the implementation of our LVO screening tool in our hospital on both time and clinical metrics. Methods: Our previously validated “SNO” scale (expressive aphasia/speech, neglect, ocular deviation), has acceptable balance of user ease, sensitivity and specificity. October 2020 we began an LVO alert for patients presenting with at least 1 of the 3 above signs, and collected their data including baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke scale scores (NIHSSS), time metrics, and mortality rates and compared them between LVO activation and non activation groups using t-test and chi square. Results: Since 10/2020, 93 (22 endovascularly treated) LVO alerts were called compared with 55 (23 treated) patients in the same time epoch who fulfilled criteria but not LVO activated (1219 stroke alerts called in 2020). Mean age was 71 vs 74 years and NIHSSS were 21 vs 18. There was a trend towards earlier minutes from door to puncture (94 vs 110), device placement (113 vs 129), and recanalization (146 vs 152) between them. The most significant difference was in door to thrombolysis times (33 vs 49 minutes, p<0.03). Both groups had over 90% rate of successful recanalization. Discharge NIHSSS were not significantly different: 11 vs 9. There were more than twice the number of mortalities among the latter group (2 vs 5, p>0.05). Discussion: Although LVO activation using SNO criteria has shortened times to intervention in our hospital, clinical improvements may be dampened by ongoing issues limiting full adoption. But, those treatment modalities that require no additional resources, regardless of LVO (IV TPA) were expedited. Conclusion: LVO activation based on SNO criteria has shortened time to treatment. NIHSSS at discharge did not notably improve among the LVO activation group, but in house mortality was halved.
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