Background and purpose: treating ischemic stroke with thrombolytic therapy is effective and safe, but limited data exist on its efficacy and safety in different etiologic subtypes.
Methods: patients with acute ischemic stroke treated with intravenous thrombolysis between 1995 and 2008 at our hospital were classified according to the Trial of ORG 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment criteria based on diagnostic evaluation. Clinical outcome of the stroke subtypes by 3-month modified Rankin Scale was compared by multivariate logistic regression. A good outcome was defined as modified Rankin Scale ≤ 2. Symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage was defined according to both National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and European Cooperative Acute Stroke Study criteria.
Results: of the 957 eligible patients, 41% (389) had cardioembolisms, 23% (217) large-artery atherosclerosis, and 11% (101) small-vessel disease (SVD). A good outcome was more common in SVD than in the other subtypes. Patients with SVD were more often male (64% versus 54%), had a lower baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score, lower mortality rate, and experienced no symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage. Patients with SVD had a prior stroke more often (20% versus 11%), whereas hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and transient ischemic attacks were equally distributed in all subtypes. Patients with SVD had a better outcome even after adjusting for baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale and glucose level, age, and hyperdense artery sign (OR, 1.81; 1.01 to 3.23). In the adjusted multivariate model, other etiologic groups showed no significant correlation to good outcome.
Conclusions: patients with SVD were spared from bleeding complications and had the best outcome even after adjustment for confounding factors.