Predictors of Need for Critical Care Support, Adverse Events, and Outcome after Stroke Thrombolysis

Results from trials and international registries exhibit heterogeneity regarding safety, efficacy, markers of prognosis, and markers of the need for critical care support after intravenous thrombolysis (IVT) for strokes. The purpose of our study was to indentify such markers after performance of comparisons among patients who received thrombolysis in our intensive care unit.

Our study included 124 patients who received IVT in accordance with international criteria. Outcome measures of univariate and regression analyses resulted from comparisons between groups of patients with or without the need for critical care support (advanced life support and neurocritical care interventions), groups of patients developing or not developing primary adverse events (symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage [SICH] and/or Death and/or Serious systemic bleeding and/or New stroke) and groups of patients with different main outcome variables (mortality, functional independence at 3 months).

Our results suggested that higher severity scores (Simplified Acute Physiology Score II, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale) correlated with the need for critical care support, primary adverse events, and main outcome variables, whereas older age was significantly associated with fewer adverse events. Hyperlipidemia, symptom-to-needle time, and vascular disease were associated with functional capacity at 3 months, whereas diabetes mellitus and vascular disease correlated with the need for critical care support.

Patients' age, hyperlipidemia, presence of vascular disease, Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (a novel marker), and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale at 2 hours and at 7 days are independent predictors of the need for critical care support, adverse events, and clinical outcomes after thrombolysis.