Stroke patients that underwent endovascular treatment — a procedure in which surgeons remove a blood clot from a blocked artery in the brain — had better outcomes than those treated with a drug to break down the clot, according to a new study published in New England Journal of Medicine.
For the study, researchers randomly assigned 500 acute ischemic stroke patients to either receive endovascular treatment or tPA — the clot-dissolving drug. Researchers assessed the clinical outcomes of the patients for two years after treatment.
Two-year data was available for 391 of the patients and mortality data was available for 459 study participants.
Researchers found no significant difference between the two groups based on patients with 'excellent' outcomes. However, 37 percent of patients in the endovascular treatment group showed functional independence two years later, compared to 24 percent of those treated with medication.
The average quality-of-life score was 0.48 among the endovascular treatment group and 0.38 among the medication group.
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