• Ryan P Radecki, Arif Azam, Pratik B Doshi, and Rosa C Banuelos.
• The Department of Emergency Medicine, The University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, TX.
• Acad Emerg Med. 2015 Mar 1;22(3):259-63.

ObjectivesThe objective was to assess relative incidence of clinical adverse effects between patients receiving, and not receiving, iodinated contrast prior to thrombolysis.MethodsThis was a retrospective registry review of patients presenting to the emergency department treated with recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator (rt-PA) for acute ischemic stroke between 2004 and 2012. The authors compared the occurrence of all grades of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH), and in-hospital deaths between patients undergoing computed tomographic angiography (CTA) prior to thrombolysis and those who did not.ResultsA total of 1,014 patients were available for analysis meeting inclusion criteria. A total of 473 patients underwent CTA prior to rt-PA administration. Baseline characteristics were generally similar across groups, excepting fewer signs of acute infarct and old stroke in the CTA group (28.8% vs. 8.5% and 9.9% vs. 3.7%, respectively) and creatinine. Adverse event outcomes were not consistently distributed across the groups. Patients in the CTA group had a similar incidence of any ICH (11.0% vs. 8.1%, p = 0.120), but fewer type II parenchymal hemorrhages (2.1% vs. 4.6%, p = 0.025) and fewer in-hospital deaths (7.2% vs. 12.6%, p = 0.005).ConclusionsNo consistent harms were observed in association with intravenous iodinated contrast prior to rt-PA administration. It is reasonable to continue CTA prior to thrombolysis as clinically indicated.© 2015 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

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