Abstract
Back Ground: Rapid Arterial Occlusion Evaluation Scale (RACE) was first instituted in Barcelona and described in 2014 to successfully assess stroke severity and identify patients with acute stroke with large vessel occlusion (LVO) at pre-hospital setting by medical emergency technicians. Objective: We instituted Rapid Arterial Occlusion Evaluation Scale (RACE) hospital bypass protocol (RA) in Lucas county, Ohio since July 2015. Our aim in this study is to evaluate the sensitivity of our RACE protocol in identifying cerebro-vascular accidents and furthermore to identify ischemic CVAs from the cohort. Method: All county EMS personnel (N=464) underwent training in the Rapid Arterial Occlusion Evaluation (RACE) score. The RACE Alert (RA) protocol, whereby patients with stroke symptoms, who were last seen normal less than 12 hours and had a RACE score ≥5 were taken to a facility that has neuro-interventional capacity, was implemented in July 2015. An IRB approved prospective DB was maintained during that period. Patient’s stroke characteristics, type of acute treatment and final diagnosis on discharge were reviewed for the purpose of this abstract. Our results were comparable to the Spanish study done in Barcelona in 2014. Results: Between Jul 2016-Jun 2016 186 RAs were activated. The discharge diagnoses included ischemic stroke N=91 (49%), ICH N=26 (14%) and TIA N=17(9%). The rate of stroke mimic was N=52 (28%) of the total RACE alerts. These included seizures (12%), metabolic encephalotpathy (12%) and others including sepsis and migraines. Of the patients presenting as RA, 33% underwent IV tPA treatment ± mechanical thrombectomy. Conclusion: Results from our prospective county wide data is comparable to prior studies. RACE score may be scalable to other EMS systems to triage potential LVOs for direct transfer to centers with interventional capabilities.
Published Version
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