Super-Early Drug Therapy Reduces Stroke Disability

A new study found that giving clot-busting drugs within 90 minutes of a mild to moderate stroke prevents or greatly reduces the chances of disability. Current guidelines recommend giving a clot-busting drug within 4.5 hours of symptoms. A large European study looked at the outcomes of 6,856 people diagnosed with ischemic stroke. Ischemic strokes are the most common type of stroke. They occur when a clot blocks blood flow to the brain. All of the patients received an intravenous (IV) clot-busting drug, called tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), within 4.5 hours. Doctors call this procedure thrombolysis. But patients who got the drug within 90 minutes of symptoms had little or no disability 3 months later, compared with patients who got thrombolysis after 90 minutes. The journal Stroke published the study online. HealthDay News wrote about it August 22.