It all started with Mr Clean and has snowballed into a crucial moment in acute stroke management. Endovascular therapy reduces mortality and disability in stroke.
In the phase 3 ESCAPE trial, 316 patients with ischemic stroke who had a large artery occlusion were randomly assigned to standard medical care, including tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) where appropriate, or standard medical care plus endovascular intervention. No specific device for the endovascular therapy was stipulated but most patients (86%) used retrievable stents.
I’m Carmen Lahiff-Jenkins Managing Editor of the International Journal of Stroke and I spoke to principal investigators Michael Hill and Mayank Goyal from the University of Calgary.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijs.12424/abstract