outcomes

Kevin O’Connor, MD

Alemseged F, Rocco A, Arba F, Schwabova JP, Wu T, Cavicchia L, Ng F, Ng JL, Zhao H, Williams C, et al. Posterior National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale Improves Prognostic Accuracy in Posterior Circulation Stroke. Stroke. 2021.

The NIH Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is an indispensable part of acute stroke evaluations, but its components focus more on anterior circulation deficits than posterior circulation deficits. Alemseged et al. developed the POST-NIHSS to augment the NIHSS with additional posterior circulation deficits based on retrospective analysis of 202 patients with clinical and radiographic evidence of posterior circulation stroke and NIHSS score <10 who did not undergo mechanical thrombectomy from the Basilar Artery Treatment and Management registry. They then validated their POST-NIHSS with 65 prospectively recruited patients.

Clinical features of posterior circulation strokes may include gait/truncal ataxia, diplopia, ptosis, nystagmus, internuclear ophthalmoplegia, vertical gaze impairment, Horner syndrome, palatal palsy, tongue deviation, and abnormal cough. The retrospective analysis identified gait/truncal ataxia (OR, 3.14 [95% CI, 1.24–7.92], P=0.02), dysphagia (OR, 5.22 [95% CI, 1.63–16.7], P=0.005), and abnormal cough (OR, 8.17 [95% CI, 1.49–44.8], P=0.02) as significantly associated with poor outcome. To the standard NIHSS, the POST-NIHSS adds 3 points for gait/truncal ataxia when assessing item 7 and a new item 12 to assess for abnormal cough (5 points) and dysphagia (4 points). In a ROC analysis for age-adjusted poor outcome, POST-NIHSS performed better than NIHSS (POST-NIHSS AUC, 0.80 [95% CI, 0.73–0.87] versus NIHSS AUC, 0.73 [95% CI, 0.64–0.83]). In a subgroup sensitivity analysis of 156 of the 202 patients with NIHSS 0-5 (77%), POST-NIHSS remained associated with age-adjusted poor outcome (OR, 1.40 [95% CI, 1.14–1.70], P=0.01) while NIHSS was not (OR, 1.12 [95% CI, 0.82–1.56], P=0.46).

Ammad Mahmood, MBChB
@AMahmoodNeuro

Millán M, Ramos-Pachón A, Dorado L, Bustamante A, Hernández-Pérez M, Rodríg uez-Esparragoza L, Gomis M, Remollo S, Castaño C, Werner M, et al., and on behalf of the Cat-SCR Consortium. Predictors of Functional Outcome After Thrombectomy in Patients With Prestroke Disability in Clinical Practice. Stroke. 2021.

Major clinical trials generally exclude patients with pre-stroke disability, generally defined as pre-stroke modified Rankin scale (mRS) of ≥2 or 3. Accordingly, thrombectomy guidelines [1, 2] state the benefit of mechanical thrombectomy (MT) for patients with pre-stroke disability is less clear, particularly for those aged >80. Patients with pre-stroke disability are routinely considered for MT particularly when other clinical and radiological factors are favorable, such as early presentation or good ASPECTS score. In this registry-based study, patients with mRS of 2 or 3 who underwent MT in the Catalonia stroke network were examined to assess any association between pre-stroke disability and outcomes, as well as aiming to identify factors predictive of favorable outcome for patients with pre-stroke disability. A favorable outcome in this context was defined as a return to baseline mRS at 90 days.

Meghana Srinivas, MD
@SrinivasMeghana

Bres-Bullrich M, Fridman S, Sposato LA. Relative Effect of Stroke Severity and Age on Outcomes of Mechanical Thrombectomy in Acute Ischemic Stroke. Stroke. 2021;52:2846–2848.

In this article by Maria Bres-Bullrich et al., the authors discuss the utilization of prognostic tools in determining functional outcomes in patients with acute ischemic due to an anterior circulation large vessel occlusion (LVO) with or without mechanical thrombectomy (MT). Mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is the standard of care for patients presenting with anterior circulation LVO. However, not all patients who receive MT benefit in a similar way. Stroke severity and age, which are readily available, are strong determinants of outcomes in patients receiving MT in clinical trials, and they heavily influence the decision to perform MT. However, there is a possible discrepancy between observational studies and clinical trials, with the former showing older age group (≥80 years) is associated with lower likelihood of shift to better outcomes and higher rates of death. In real-world practice, the interplay between stroke severity and age, as well as the relative weight of each variable on outcomes, are poorly understood.

Kevin O’Connor, M.D.

Sundelin HEK, Tomson T, Zelano J, Söderling J, Bang P, Ludvigsson JF. Pediatric Ischemic Stroke and Epilepsy: A Nationwide Cohort Study. Stroke. 2021.

Post-stroke epilepsy is a well-known entity, particularly in adults. To explore post-stroke epilepsy in children, Sundelin et al. used the Swedish National Registers to identify 1220 children with ischemic stroke (including cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, which could not be differentiated in the Register) and 12155 comparators between 1969-2016; they excluded patients with previously known epilepsy.

Of the 1220 children with ischemic stroke, 219 (18%) developed post-stroke epilepsy compared to 91 comparators (0.7%). The epilepsy risk was highest in the six months following stroke (HR, 119.4 [95% CI, 48.0–297.4]) and remained elevated even at 20 years post-stroke (HR, 7.9 [95% CI, 3.3–19.0]). The cumulative incidence of post-stroke epilepsy increased with longer follow-up periods: 11.9% at 5 years (95% CI, 10.1%–14.0%), 21.6% (95% CI, 19.0%–24.6%), and 26.4% at 30 years (95% CI, 23.0%–30.1%).