Pre-Hospital Delay in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke in a Multicenter Stroke Registry: K-PLUS

There is scant data related to prehospital delay in cases of acute ischemic stroke from multicenter studies conducted after change of the therapeutic window of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (iv-tPA) administration to within 4.5 h of onset. We investigated factors causing prehospital delay and their associations with clinical outcomes using data from a regional multicenter stroke registry.

Data from the multicenter regional stroke registry were analyzed. Patients admitted within 24 h of the last known well time were categorized according to whether their admission was early (≤ 4 h; n = 2350) or delayed (> 4 h; n = 2752). We then compared patients' backgrounds and outcomes between the two groups.

Five-thousand, one-hundred two patients presented at hospitals within 24 h of onset. On multivariate analysis, atrial fibrillation, higher NIHSS score on admission, anterior circulation stroke, detection of symptoms immediately after onset, and emergency system use were positively associated with early admission, whereas modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score before onset, onset at home, diabetes, current smoking, dementia and symptom detection between 00:00 and 06:00 h were negatively associated. Early admission was associated with mRS scores of 0-2 at discharge independent of backgrounds, stroke severity, and thrombolytic therapy (odds ratio, 1.56; 95% confidence interval, 1.32-1.84).

Certain patient factors relating to prehospital delay, such as lack of awareness of onset or non-cardioembolic etiology, are crucial but often inevitable. However, earlier admission was associated mRS scores of 0-2 independent of other factors. This study may help to plan educational activities to general population or public awareness campaigns.