Title:Low-dose Tissue Plasminogen Activator is as Effective as Standard Tissue Plasminogen Activator Administration for the Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke
Volume: 11
Issue: 1
Author(s): Hui Chen, Guangming Zhu, Nan Liu and Weiwei Zhang
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Outcome, Stroke, Thrombolysis, Time window, Tissue-type plasminogen activator, Urokinase.
Abstract: We compared the efficacy of intravenous (IV) combination of low-dose tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) and
urokinase (UK) versus either classical IV tPA or UK alone for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) within 4.5 h of symptom onset.
One-hundred fifty-three AIS patients were treated with 1 of 3 different IV thrombolytic therapies within a 4.5-h time
window. Clinical data included age, gender, type of therapy, NIHSS score, time from onset to needle, ASPECTS, mRS at
90 days, and medical history. The outcomes were ΔNIHSS-a (the difference between NIHSS scores at admission and 24
h); ΔNIHSS-b (difference between NIHSS scores at admission and 7 days), and mRS at 90 days. Multivariate logistic
regression (MLR) was used to determine if treatments or other variables could predict these outcomes. Of 153 patients,
60.1% had a good outcome and 39.9% had a poor outcome. The most important predictors of 90-day mRS were AF
history (p < 0.001) and NIHSS score at admission (p = 0.001). Age (p = 0.004) and treatment type (p = 0.043) that were
also significantly associated with 90-day mRS. IV tPA yielded the best outcome, compared to low-dose tPA/UK (OR =
1.17) and UK alone (OR = 1.42). Low-dose tPA/UK also resulted in better outcome than UK alone did (OR = 1.12). We
conclude that low-dose IV tPA with UK administered within a 4.5-h time window was effective and likely comparable to
classical IV tPA thrombolysis.
