After decades of delay, if compared to other medical emergencies like myocardial infarction,
knowledge about stroke finally achieved a grade that allows intervention to change
its natural history. That has been a long road.
The acute stroke phase comprises the first few hours, when the potential maximal lesion
is not necessarily established yet, creating a time window for intervention.
The use of the intravenous rt-PA is the standard treatment for acute ischemic stroke,
with evidence of its benefits for eligible patients. One of the advantages of this
approach is the possibility of intervening soon after the patient was assessed. Despite
this advantage, only a small proportion of patients benefit from intravenous t-PA,
mainly due to its short therapeutic window (≤ 4.5 hours) and poor performance in large
vessel occlusion.
Intra-arterial thrombolysis via catheter (IAT) has been performed for more than 30
years, as an alternative or as a adjunctive treatment, but its exact role was not
clear until recently, despite teams involved had a positive impression about results,
at least in part of patients. New devices were developed to extract the thrombus without
or after pharmacological intervention, but the evidence of its benefit remained lacking.
In 2013 three negative trials put IAT in great doubt[1].
The question had a turning point in 2015, when new randomized clinical trials showed
that intra-arterial thrombolysis alone or in combination with IV t-PA was superior
to IV t-PA alone, in a selected population of patients harbouring large vessel occlusions[2].
Additionally, these trials revealed a set of indicators of performance, which improvement
is associated with better outcomes, like frequency of complete recanalization and
time needed to achieve it.
Part of the effort to improve outcomes by improving the IAT indicators is reported
in the present issue[3]. The possibility of a quicker and more frequent complete vessel recanalization is
welcome, along with more widespread availability of these treatment tools in the public
hospitals, more information to make patients seek help earlier and better recognition
and processes of investigation in the emergency rooms. There is a long road of continuous
progress in stroke care.
