Summaries of Must-Read Clinical Literature, Guidelines, and FDA Actions
Thrombectomy Access Lags for U.S. Stroke Patients
Key clinical point: During 2017, U.S. patients with acute ischemic stroke continued to have limited access to rapid treatment with endovascular thrombectomy.
Major finding: One-fifth of U.S. acute ischemic stroke patients had thrombectomy access within 15 minutes based on calculated ground-transport times.
Study details: Analysis of U.S. national data in MEDPAR, a database published by CMS.
Disclosures: The study received no commercial funding. The first author reported receiving research funding from Stryker Neurovascular outside of this work. One coauthor reported serving in roles for the University of Texas Health System for which the institution has been funded via various industry and government grants, and another coauthor reported receiving research funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, NIH, Genentech, and CSL Behring, as well as consulting fees from Frazer Ltd.
Sarraj A et al. Stroke. 2020 Feb 12. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.120.028850