Journal of cardiovascular medicine
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J Cardiovasc Med (Hagerstown) · Jan 2017
ReviewTreatment of stroke with early imaging and revascularization: when to be aggressive?
Neuroimaging has a key role in the assessment and treatment of acute stroke. Cerebral computer tomography is the first step to differentiate hemorragic from ischemic stroke and to detect, in the latter, early signs representative of the lesion severity and predicting a possible hemorrhagic infarction after thrombolytic treatment. ⋯ Moreover, advanced neuroimaging may be of help in choosing the patients to be submitted to endovascular treatment when occlusion of an intracranial artery is documented, either after intravenous thrombolysis or as a primary approach. Here we describe the impact of neuroimaging in the decisional process in acute ischemic stroke, presenting the literature evidence on the topic, especially regarding the recent trials on endovascular treatment.