Acute stroke care in France: Survey in the 138 stroke units

According to the French regulation, stroke units (SU) include both an intensive (I-SU) and a non-intensive (NI-SU) component. Their standard operating procedures have been detailed in governmental directives in 2003 and 2007.

To evaluate (i) resources available in French SU, (ii) differences between regions, and between France and the 2 close European countries of similar size, and (iii) to identify avenues for improvement.

We performed a survey of all French SU, with an online questionnaire, to evaluate available resources and activity. We compared the 17 French regions, and France, with Germany and Italy. We used 2019 as year of reference.

The 138 French SU, shared 911 I-SU beds; 123 SU (89.1%) answered the questionnaire. The number of I-SU beds per million inhabitants was 13.6 for the whole country, with important differences between regions, ranging from 7.0 (Reunion Island) to 20.9 (Occitanie region). Per million inhabitants, France had fewer I-SU beds than Germany and Italy (13.5 vs. 29.9 and 23.2 respectively), and fewer thrombectomy centres (0.6 vs. 1.8 and 1.0). Per million inhabitants, France had also lower thrombolysis (203 vs. 402) and thrombectomy (104 vs. 194) rates than Germany, but, compared with Italy, similar thrombolysis rates (203 vs. 202) and higher thrombectomy rates (104 vs. 81).

There are still avenues for improvement in acute stroke care in France, especially concerning the number and regional repartition of I-SU beds, and access to reperfusion therapies.