Dual stroke therapy has better outcome

"Stroke patients who receive intravenous thrombolysis to dissolve blood clots as well as drugs and implanted devices fare better, U.S. researchers said. Researchers at the Zeenat Qureshi Stroke Research Center at the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis said that from 2003 to 2006, 33 consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke - which occurs when a blood clot blocks an artery in the brain - were treated with thrombolysis in combination with endovascular interventions, which includes low doses of clot-fighting drugs and medical procedures such as angioplasty. Outcomes were compared with a control cohort of 30 consecutive patients treated with thrombolysis at a comparable facility at which endovascular interventions were not available. The study, published in the American Journal of Neuroradiology, found that the group that received both therapies experienced significantly lower mortality at 90 days - about 12 percent compared with 40 percent - with a significantly greater improvement in neurological ability by the time of discharge or follow-up. Patients younger than 80 years old showed the greatest improvement. 'In theory it made sense to administer both treatments, but this is the first time we have the data to support the therapeutic benefit of such an approach,' Dr. Adnan I. Qureshi said in a statement" - UPI