International journal of stroke : official journal of the International Stroke Society
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Baseline characteristics of the 4011 patients recruited into the ‘Efficacy of Nitric Oxide in Stroke’ (ENOS) trial.
High blood pressure is common in acute stroke and associated with a worse functional outcome. Many patients who present with acute stroke are taking prescribed antihypertensive therapy before their stroke. ⋯ ENOS is a large completed international trial of blood pressure management in acute stroke and includes patients representative of many stroke services worldwide.
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Our randomized controlled trial of a multifaceted evidence-based intervention for improving the inpatient management of fever, hyperglycemia, and swallowing dysfunction in the first three-days following stroke improved outcomes at 90 days by 15%. We designed a quantitative process evaluation to further explain and illuminate this finding. ⋯ Our intervention resulted in better protocol adherence in intervention stroke units, which explains our main trial findings of improved patient 90-day outcomes. Although monitoring practices significantly improved, there was no difference between the groups in the treatment of fever and hyperglycemia following acute stroke. A significant link between improved treatment practices and improved outcomes would have explained further the success of our intervention, and we are still unable to explain definitively the large improvements in death and dependency found in the main trial results. One potential explanation is that improved monitoring may have led to better overall surveillance of deteriorating patients and faster initiation of treatments not measured as part of the main trial.
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Limited studies exist on the outcome of thrombolytic therapy of acute ischemic stroke patients outside of clinical trials. ⋯ In this study of acute ischemic stroke patients, older age, male gender, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score, history of myocardial infarction or coronary artery disease, and history of atrial fibrillation were associated with increased in-hospital death among patients receiving intravenous tissue plasminogen activator. Among patients treated with intravenous tissue plasminogen activator, in-hospital mortality and symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage rates were similar between those treated within three-hours of time last known to be well and those treated between three and 4·5 hours after this time.
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Seizures after intracerebral hemorrhage are a common complication and may adversely affect neurological outcome. However, studies are inadequate on the utility of prophylactic anticonvulsant therapy in patients with hemorrhagic stroke, and the results remains controversial. ⋯ Given the lack of evidence for seizure prophylaxis in patients with acute supratentorial intracerebral hemorrhage, randomized controlled trials are desperately needed. The results from our study are believed to directly influence future prophylactic anticonvulsant therapy of intracerebral hemorrhage.