Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Original research
Insights into variations in preferred selection criteria for acute stroke endovascular therapy
  1. Feng Wang1,2,
  2. Bruce C V Campbell2,
  3. Leonid Churilov3,
  4. Peter Mitchell4,
  5. Richard Dowling4,
  6. Ziyuan Chen5,
  7. Stephen M Davis2,
  8. Bernard Yan2
  1. 1Department of Neurology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Affiliated Sixth People’s Hospital, Shanghai, China
  2. 2Department of Medicine, Melbourne Brain Centre, Royal Melbourne Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. 3Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  4. 4Department of Radiology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  5. 5School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  1. Correspondence to Profosser Bernard Yan, Royal Melbourne Hospital, 300 Grattan Street, Parkville, Victoria 3050, Australia; Bernard.yan{at}mh.org.au

Abstract

Background Endovascular thrombectomy (ET) is safe, effective, and cost-effective for large artery occlusion ischemic stroke, even if under different selection criteria.

Purpose To study the preferences for ET selection criteria by surveying clinicians and consumers, where number needed to treat to achieve functional independence is the only factor being considered.

Methods A survey providing visual representation of the proportion of patients treated and expected functional outcomes, based on the selection criteria in each of the recent randomized trials of ET, was distributed nationwide in Australia and New Zealand to clinicians and consumers. The preferred selection criteria were identified by the frequency of first choice and using decision-analysis techniques to assess consensus by treating respondents as a panel of experts and aggregating their preferences on selection criteria.

Results 104 clinicians and 107 consumer respondents (43/107 (40%) stroke survivors) took part in the study. Selection criteria of EXTEND-IA were ranked as the most preferred by the consensus process analysis and were the first choice of 64 individual clinicians (61.5%; 95% CI 52% to 71%). ESCAPE trial selection criteria were ranked as the most preferred option and chosen by 42 individual consumers (39%; 95% CI 29% to 48%). Most clinicians based their choice on the ratio of patients benefiting from ET, while consumers considered the absolute number of patients benefiting.

Conclusions Consumers favor maximization of the absolute number achieving good outcome in comparison with clinicians. This finding suggests that less restrictive criteria may be favored in clinical practice.

  • stroke
  • thrombectomy
  • artery
  • intervention

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Contributors FW, BCVC, ZC: data gathering, manuscript preparation; LC: statistical analysis of data; PM, RD: review, editing; SMD, BY: overall review, study design.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.