Cardiologists often remark that the field of ischaemic stroke follows in the footsteps of cardiology, just one to two decades later. In the case of endovascular reperfusion therapies this certainly seems to have been the case but there are now multiple positive randomised trials establishing the benefit of mechanical thrombectomy over and above standard care, which included intravenous alteplase in most cases. We will outline the new evidence, contrast the recent trials with the earlier negative studies and discuss some important differences between acute myocardial infarction and ischaemic stroke and the techniques required to treat them.
Keywords: Computed tomography perfusion imaging; Endovascular thrombectomy; Ischaemic stroke; Thrombolysis.
Copyright © 2015 Australian and New Zealand Society of Cardiac and Thoracic Surgeons (ANZSCTS) and the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (CSANZ). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.