Simplifying Acute Stroke Prognostication

A combination of age and NIH Stroke Scale score may reliably identify patients who are unlikely to have a good outcome after stroke.

For clinicians who treat acute stroke, several clinical prediction scores are available for prognosticating long-term outcomes, but such scores are used infrequently for decision making. Investigators have now created a highly simplified rule based on just two clinical factors. The Stroke Prognostication using Age and NIH Stroke Scale score (SPAN) index comprises a patient's age in years added to the NIH Stroke Scale score on admission. Scores are dichotomized at 100; patients are thereby labeled SPAN-100–positive or SPAN-100–negative. The utility of this dichotomized SPAN index was tested by applying it retrospectively to patients enrolled in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) trials of tissue plasminogen a…

Reviewing Author

Hooman Kamel, MD

Disclosures

Speaker’s bureauGenentech

Grant / Research supportNational Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Michael Goldberg Stroke Research Fund

Editorial boardsPLOS One; Scientific Reports

Leadership positions in professional societiesNeurocritical Care Society (Research Committee Member)

Hooman Kamel, MD

Disclosures

Speaker’s bureauGenentech

Grant / Research supportNational Institutes of Health/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Michael Goldberg Stroke Research Fund

Editorial boardsPLOS One; Scientific Reports

Leadership positions in professional societiesNeurocritical Care Society (Research Committee Member)