Endovascular Treatment of Ischemic Stroke in a Developing Country

There is inequality in access to recent advancements in endovascular treatment of acute ischemic stroke (AIS), and Mexico is unusually sensitive to such inequality.

To report the initial experience of the Mexican Endovascular Reperfusion Registry (MERR).

The MERR is an academic, independent, prospective, multicenter, observational registry of patients treated with endovascular reperfusion techniques in Mexican hospitals. The registry includes information on demographic and clinical characteristics, diagnostic procedures, treatments, selected time metrics, and outcomes.

In all, 49 (57.1% female) patients from 8 centers were included and had the following characteristics: median National Institute of Health Stroke Scale score, 16; median Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score score, 9; received intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator, 49%; and treated with mechanical devices, 39 (79.6%), including 20 treated with stent retriever alone, 2 with retriever and intra-arterial thrombolysis (IAt), 10 with catheter aspiration (4 in combination with IAt), 6 with a combination of catheter aspiration and stent retriever, and 1 with IAt followed by balloon angioplasty. Recanalization (TICI 2b or better) was achieved in 69.4% of the patients. The median clot to recanalization time was 30 minutes. A modified Rankin scale ≤2 was achieved in 44.9% of the patients, and 68.2% of these were treated with stent retriever (P = .011). Procedure-related morbidity was 12.2%, 7 patients presented intracerebral hemorrhage (71.4% asymptomatic), and all-cause mortality was 6.1%.

Endovascular treatment of AIS in Mexico is feasible and has an efficacy comparable to that of other countries. Still, many challenges remain, especially pertaining to high costs and difficulties in equality in access to treatment.