• Stroke

We would like to thank Dr Hirsch and colleagues from Massachusetts General Hospital for their insightful comment on our paper.1 The authors advocate a more cautious conclusion regarding the efficacy of endovascular stroke intervention in the elderly as a control group of younger patients was lacking in our study. Although comparison with a younger group of patients is interesting, such data can hardly be used for drawing definitive conclusions regarding the efficacy of endovascular therapy. A clinical comparison between young and older patients is unfortunately not possible due to tremendous differences between the two study populations, such as pre-existing medical comorbidities and dementia. Randomized controlled studies comparing patient outcomes with intra-arterial therapy versus intravenous thrombolysis or best medical management will be needed to provide definitive information on the best therapeutic approach in this patient population.

In patients with a National …