Impact of Prehospital Intervention on Delay Time to Thrombolytic Therapy in a Stroke Center with a Systemized Stroke Code Program.

BACKGROUND: The use of emergency medical services (EMS) and notification to hospitals by paramedics for patients with suspected stroke are crucial determinants in reducing delay time to acute stroke treatment. The aim of this study is to investigate whether EMS use and prehospital notification (PN) can shorten the time to thrombolytic therapy in a stroke center with a systemized stroke code program. METHODS: Beginning in January 2012, stroke experts in our stroke center received direct calls via mobile phone from paramedics prenotifying the transport of patients with suspected stroke. We compared baseline characteristics and prehospital/in-hospital delay time in stroke patients treated with intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator for 44 months with and without EMS use and/or PN. RESULTS: Intravenous thrombolytic therapy was performed on 274 patients. Of those patients, 215 (78.5%) were transported to the hospital via EMS and 59 (21.5%) were admitted via private modes of transportation. The patients who used EMS had shorter median onset-to-arrival times (62 minutes versus 116 minutes, P < .001). There was no difference in in-hospital delay time between the 2 groups. In 28 cases (13%) of EMS transport, EMS personnel called the clinical staff to notify the incoming patient. Prenotification by EMS was associated with shorter median door-to-imaging time (9 minutes versus 12 minutes, P = .045) and door-to-needle time (20 minutes versus 29 minutes, P = .011). CONCLUSIONS: We found that EMS use reduces prehospital delay time. However, EMS use without prenotification does not shorten in-hospital processing time in a stroke center with a systemized stroke code program.

Biological Properties of Fucoxanthin in Oil Recovered from Two Brown Seaweeds Using Supercritical CO2 Extraction.

The bioactive materials in brown seaweeds hold great interest for developing new drugs and healthy foods. The oil content in brown seaweeds (Saccharina japonica and Sargassum horneri) was extracted by using environmentally friendly supercritical CO2 (SC-CO2) with ethanol as a co-solvent in a semi-batch flow extraction process and compared the results with a conventional extraction process using hexane, ethanol, and acetone mixed with methanol (1:1, v/v). The SC-CO2 method was used at a temperature of 45 °C and pressure of 250 bar. The flow rate of CO2 (27 g/min) was constant for the entire extraction period of 2 h. The obtained oil from the brown seaweeds was analyzed to determine their valuable compounds such as fatty acids, phenolic compounds, fucoxanthin and biological properties including antioxidant, antimicrobial, and antihypertension effects. The amounts of fucoxanthin extracted from the SC-CO2 oils of S. japonica and S. horneri were 0.41 ± 0.05 and 0.77 ± 0.07 mg/g, respectively. High antihypertensive activity was detected when using mixed acetone and methanol, whereas the phenolic content and antioxidant property were higher in the oil extracted by SC-CO2. The acetone-methanol mix extracts exhibited better antimicrobial activities than those obtained by other means. Thus, the SC-CO2 extraction process appears to be a good method for obtaining valuable compounds from both brown seaweeds, and showed stronger biological activity than that obtained by the conventional extraction process.

Thermogravimetric characteristics and pyrolysis kinetics of alga Sagarssum sp. biomass.

Alga Sagarssum sp. can be converted to bio-oil, gas, and char through pyrolysis. In this study, the pyrolysis characteristics and kinetics of Sagarssum sp. were investigated using a thermogravimetric analyzer and tubing reactor, respectively. Sagarssum sp. decomposed below 550°C, but the majority of materials decomposed between 200 and 350°C at heating rates of 5-20°C/min. The apparent activation energy increased from 183.53 to 505.57 kJ mol(-1) with increasing pyrolysis conversion. The kinetic parameters of Sagarssum sp. pyrolysis were determined using nonlinear least-squares regression of the experimental data, assuming second-order kinetics. The proposed lumped kinetic model represented the experimental results well and the kinetic rate constants suggested a predominant pyrolysis reaction pathway from Sagarssum sp. to bio-oil, rather than from Sagarssum sp. to gas. The kinetic rate constants indicated that the predominant reaction pathway was A (Sagarssum sp.) to B (bio-oil), rather than A (Sagarssum sp.) to C (gas; C1-C4).