International journal of stroke : official journal of the International Stroke Society
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Endovascular therapeutic hypothermia for acute ischemic stroke: ICTuS 2/3 protocol.
Therapeutic hypothermia improves neurological outcome after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest or neonatal hypoxic-ischemic injury. Although supported by preclinical evidence, therapeutic hypothermia for acute stroke remains under study. In the Intravascular Cooling in the Treatment of Stroke (ICTuS) trial, awake stroke patients were successfully cooled using an endovascular cooling catheter and a novel antishivering regimen. ⋯ The ICTuS 2/3 protocol contains novel features - based on the previous ICTuS and ICTuS-L trials - designed to achieve these milestones. Innovations include scrupulous pneumonia surveillance, intravenous chilled saline immediately after randomization to induce rapid cooling, and a requirement for catheter placement within two-hours of thrombolysis. An Investigational Device Exemption has been obtained and an initial group of sites initiated.
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Novel oral anticoagulants provide an effective and convenient alternative to warfarin for stroke prevention in patients with atrial fibrillation. However, novel anticoagulants also present new challenges for stroke physicians, such as measurement of anticoagulant effect in emergency situations, use of thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke, optimal timing of introduction of novel anticoagulants following acute ischemic stroke, and management of intracerebral hemorrhage. In this review, we propose pragmatic approaches to dealing with challenging management issues that will face stroke physicians who care for patients with acute stroke in the novel oral anticoagulant era.
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Fever, hyperglycemia, and swallow dysfunction poststroke are associated with significantly worse outcomes. We report treatment and monitoring practices for these three items from a cohort of acute stroke patients prior to randomization in the Quality in Acute Stroke Care trial. ⋯ Our results showed that acute stroke patients were: undermonitored and undertreated for fever and hyperglycemia; and underscreened for swallowing dysfunction and unnecessarily reassessed by a speech pathologist, indicating the need for urgent behavior change.
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Do-not-resuscitate orders may be associated with poor outcome in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage because of less active management. ⋯ In addition to confirming the role of known intracerebral hemorrhage prognostic factors in do-not-resuscitate decision-making, our results demonstrate that do-not-resuscitate orders led to less active care of intracerebral hemorrhage patients.
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The first Intensive Blood Pressure Reduction in Acute Intracerebral Hemorrhage Trial (INTERACT1) study found that early intensive BP lowering seemed to attenuate haematoma growth when compared with a more conservative guideline based policy. Clinicians were therefore waiting with anticipation for the results of INTERACT2, in which 2839 patients with spontaneous ICH and a systolic BP between 150 and 220 mmHg were randomly assigned to receive intensive anti-hypertensive therapy with a systolic target of <140 mmHg within one hour, or a standard guideline recommended treatment of <180 mmHg. INTERACT2 failed to show a significant reduction in the rate of the primary outcome of death or major disability [modified Rankin scale score (mRS) of 3-6], with early intensive BP lowering. ⋯ Reassuringly, there were no differences in the rate of death or numbers of serious adverse events between the two groups. INTERACT2 has shown that a strategy of early and aggressive BP lowering is safe in a wide range of clinical settings, and is probably effective. The Antihypertensive Treatment of Acute Cerebral Haemorrhage (ATACH) II trial, which is using similar BP targets to INTERACT, should shed further light on the benefit of early aggressive BP lowering in patients with spontaneous ICH.