Article Text
Abstract
Background Despite complete endovascular recanalization, a significant percentage of patients with acute anterior stroke do not achieve a good clinical outcome. We analyzed optimal thresholds of relevant parameters to discern functional independence after successful endovascular recanalization and test their predictive performance.
Methods Patients with acute anterior ischemic stroke undergoing endovascular treatment between April 2015 and November 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Only patients with premorbid modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score <3 and complete recanalization (modified Thrombolysis In Cerebral Infarction 2c/3) were included. Optimal thresholds of the most important variables predicting functional independence (mRS 0–2 after 90 days) were calculated using receiver operating characteristic curves and their predictive performance was tested in an independent dataset using machine learning algorithms.
Results Overall, 371 patients met the inclusion criteria. Optimal thresholds for the overall most important variables to predict functional independence were (1) National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score ≤5 after 24 hours (area under the curve (AUC) 0.88 (95% CI 0.84 to 0.92)); (2) Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) ≥7 on follow-up CT (AUC 0.72 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.77)); and (3) change in NIHSS score ≥8 after 24 hours (AUC 0.70 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.74)). The performance of these thresholds to predict a good outcome using machine learning in the independent dataset was evaluated for (1) NIHSS score ≤5 after 24 hours (AUC 0.76 (95% CI 0.71 to 0.81)); (2) follow-up ASPECTS ≥7 (AUC 0.64 (95% CI 0.58 to 0.70)); (3) change in NIHSS score ≥8 after 24 hours (AUC 0.61 (95% CI 0.55 to 0.67)); and (4) the combination of all three parameters (AUC 0.84 (95% CI 0.80 to 0.88)).
Conclusions After complete recanalization in acute anterior circulation ischemic stroke, a good long-term outcome could be accurately predicted reaching NIHSS score ≤5 after 24 hours.
- thrombectomy
- stroke
- statistics
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.
Footnotes
Contributors UN, MB and MM conceived and designed the research. UN, PK, SN, SS, CSW, CG, JARP and MM acquired and analyzed the data. UN performed the statistical analysis and prepared the first draft of the report. All authors made critical revisions of the manuscript for important intellectual content and approved the final version.
Funding UN was funded by the Physician-Scientist Program from the University of Heidelberg Medical Faculty.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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