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The effectiveness of early thrombolytic therapy after acute stroke observed in randomized trials persists in everyday clinical practice, according to a large, population-based study.
Using a German stroke registry, researchers studied nearly 85,000 patients who were treated for acute ischemic stroke from 2008 to 2012. Some 12% of patients received thrombolytic therapy (recombinant tissue plasminogen activator), and the rest did not.
Patients' likelihood of achieving a favorable outcome on the modified Rankin scale increased significantly as the time to thrombolysis decreased. The number of patients who needed to be treated to achieve one favorable outcome was 4.5 when thrombolysis was given within 1.5 hours of stroke onset, rising to 18 when …