ASA: Optimizing Stroke Outcome Is a Matter of Time, Team, and Treatment

http://www.medpagetoday.com

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 19 -- The 60 minutes following onset of stroke symptoms add up to a golden hour that can save millions of neurons, but the minutes that tick away after the patient enters the hospital are just as important, according to participants in this exclusive MedPage Today video roundtable.
Jeffrey L. Saver, M.D., a professor of neurology at the University of California Los Angeles Stroke Center and vice chair of the American Heart Association's stroke council, said the time-is-brain message appears to be gaining ground with patients: in a study of more than 100,000 ischemic stroke patients, about a third arrived in an hour or less.

Krya Becker, M.D., a professor of neurology at the University of Washington in Seattle, joined Dr. Saver in our discussion.

Dr. Becker said that one of the difficulties in acute stroke care was the "unapproved use of approved therapies."

There are two issues, she said, one is the approval of treatments that have not been proven effective and the other is off-label treatments. Either way, the result can be bad medicine and bad science.

Peggy Peck, executive editor of MedPage Today, moderated the panel.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• medicine
• health