Outcome of Intravenous Thrombolytic Therapy in a Sample of Egyptian Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke: Correlation with Possible Predictors

Abstract

troke is a complex disease and one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality among the adult population. Risk factors for stroke are well established and include familial and genetic factors, gender and ethinicity, high blood pressure, DM, AF, high cholesterol, smoking, alcohol, stress, physical inactivity and obesity, chronic kidney disease, hematological disorders, arterial diseases, infections, vasculitis, drug induced and interactions between these factors. IV rtPA has become the standard therapy for patients presenting within 3 hours of onset of acute ischemic stroke and then that time window has been extended to 4.5 hours with additional exclusions. Despite the recent advances in the field center around interventional stroke neurology and direct intra-arterial therapies, treatment of patients with endovascular therapy has not proved to be superior in improving patient outcomes compared with IV rtPA. A huge variety of factors are known to influence patient outcome, including demographic variables, genetics, stroke severity, onset to treatment time, stroke etiological mechanism, stroke lesion location, comorbid conditions, PI, related complications, stroke unit care, and rehabilitation. All these factors influence the functional outcome among ischemic stroke patients after receiving IV rtPA. Knowledge of these prognostic factors enables the clinician to make a reasonable prediction for each patient, to offer a rational treatment to the patients, and to help the family members understand the disease course aiming