Background and Purpose— The National Institutes of Health (NIH) estimates that stroke costs now exceed $45 billion per year. Stroke is the third leading cause of death and one of the leading causes of adult disability in North America, Europe, and Asia. A number of well-designed randomized stroke trials and case series have now been reported in the literature to evaluate the safety and efficacy of thrombolytic therapy for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke. These stroke trials have included intravenous studies, intra-arterial studies, and combinations of both, as well as use of mechanical devices for removal of thromboemboli and of neuroprotectant drugs, alone or in combination with thrombolytic therapy. At this time, the only therapy demonstrated to improve outcomes from an acute stroke is thrombolysis of the clot responsible for the ischemic event. There is room for improvement in stroke lysis studies. Divergent criteria, with disparate reporting standards and definitions, have made direct compariso...

Trial Design and Reporting Standards for Intra-Arterial Cerebral Thrombolysis for Acute Ischemic Stroke

Background and Purpose—To test the safety and recanalization efficacy of intra-arterial local delivery of plasminogen activators in acute ischemic stroke, a randomized trial of recombinant pro-urok...

PROACT: A Phase II Randomized Trial of Recombinant Pro-Urokinase by Direct Arterial Delivery in Acute Middle Cerebral Artery Stroke

PURPOSE: To prospectively identify risk factors for neurologic complications related to cerebral angiography. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 2,899 consecutive cerebral digital subtraction angiograms obtained with nonionic contrast material were prospectively evaluated. Neurologic complications were categorized as transient ( 7 days). The neurologic complication rate was correlated with patient age, type of indication for catheter angiography, medical history, fluoroscopic time, number and size of catheters, type and number of vessels injected, operator experience, and the quartile in which the study was performed. The correlations were statistically analyzed with Fisher exact tests and a multiple logistic regression model. RESULTS: There were 39 (1.3%) neurologic complications in 2,899 procedures; 20 were transient (0.7%), five (0.2%) were reversible, and 14 (0.5%) were permanent. Neurologic complications were significantly more common in pati...

Neurologic complications of cerebral angiography: prospective analysis of 2,899 procedures and review of the literature.

PURPOSE To examine the incidence of neurologic complications associated with modern cerebral angiography and to assess patient characteristics associated with an increased risk of complications. METHODS One thousand consecutive cerebral angiographic procedures were evaluated prospectively. Examinations were performed using transfemoral catheterization and film-screen methods. For purposes of this trial, a neurologic complication was defined as any new focal neurologic deficit or change in mental status occurring during the angiogram or within the following 24 hours. Patients were evaluated during and at the completion of angiography. Follow-up evaluations were performed on the day of and the day after angiography. RESULTS There were a total of 10 neurologic complications within 24 hours of angiography, 5 of which were persistent. Onset of 5 of the deficits occurred during angiography, the other 5 (3 persistent) were delayed. All complications occurred in patients being evaluated for stroke/transient ischemic attack or (in one case) asymptomatic bruit. A higher average age, longer average procedure time, and greater volume of radiographic contrast was noted in these patients than in the study population. CONCLUSION Cerebral angiography was associated with a 1% overall incidence of neurologic deficit and a 0.5% incidence of persistent deficit. All complications occurred in patients presenting with a history of stroke/transient ischemic accident or carotid bruit, which may reflect the difficulty of performing angiography in this population at risk for atherosclerotic changes.

http://www.ajnr.org/content/ajnr/15/8/1401.full.pdf

Neurologic complications of cerebral angiography.

Five hundred asymptomatic patients with cervical bruits were followed prospectively by clinical and Doppler examination for up to four years (mean, 23.2 months) to identify the variables predicting outcome. Thirty-six patients had strokes or transient ischemic attacks, 51 had cardiac ischemic events, and 45 died. At one year the incidence of cerebral ischemic events (transient ischemic attacks and strokes) was 6 percent, that of cardiac ischemic events was 7 percent, and that of death was 4 percent. The overall incidence of stroke at one year was 1.7 percent (1 percent in patients without previous transient ischemic attacks), but the incidence was 5.5 percent in patients with severe carotid-artery stenosis (greater than 75 percent). Cerebral ischemic events were most frequent in patients with severe carotid-artery stenosis (P less than 0.0001), progressing carotid-artery stenosis (P less than 0.0005), or heart disease (P less than 0.0005) and in men (P less than 0.025). The degree of carotid-artery stenosis on initial presentation was a powerful predictor of neurologic sequelae. Patients with asymptomatic cervical bruits have a higher risk of a cardiac ischemic event than of a stroke. Although the risk of cerebral ischemic events is highest in patients with severe carotid-artery stenosis, in most instances even these patients do not have strokes without some warning.

Outcome in Patients with Asymptomatic Neck Bruits

Computer analysis of complications of 5,000 catheter cerebral arteriograms performed at four hospitals (two training and two nontraining) revealed a total of 68 complications (1.4%). Eight (0.16%) of these complications were major: five patients required thrombectomy or embolectomy, two had permanent neurologic deficits, and one patient died. The complication rate for the training hospitals (3.9%) was significantly higher than that for the nontraining hospitals (0.9%), but the rates of permanent complications were identical in both groups (0.1%). Reporting criteria and complication types are described.

https://www.ajronline.org/doi/pdfplus/10.2214/ajr.131.5.861

Mani

Papers

Complications of catheter cerebral arteriography: analysis of 5,000 procedures. I. Criteria and incidence.