Determinants of door-in-door-out time in patients with ischaemic stroke transferred for endovascular thrombectomy.

BACKGROUND: Long door-in-door-out (DIDO) times are an important cause of treatment delay in patients transferred for endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) from primary stroke centres (PSC) to an intervention centre. Insight in causes of prolonged DIDO times may facilitate process improvement interventions. We aimed to quantify different components of DIDO time and to identify determinants of DIDO time. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study in a Dutch ambulance region consisting of six PSCs and one intervention centre. We included consecutive adult patients with anterior circulation large vessel occlusion, transferred from a PSC for EVT between October 1, 2019 and November 31, 2020. We subdivided DIDO into several time components and quantified contribution of these components to DIDO time. We used univariable and multivariable linear regression models to explore associations between potential determinants and DIDO time. RESULTS: We included 133 patients. Median (IQR) DIDO time was 66 (52-83) min. The longest component was CTA-to-ambulance notification time with a median (IQR) of 24 (16-37) min. DIDO time increased with age (6 min per 10 years, 95% CI: 2-9), onset-to-door time outside 6 h (20 min, 95% CI: 5-35), M2-segment occlusion (15 min, 95% CI: 4-26) and right-sided ischaemia (12 min, 95% CI: 2-21). CONCLUSIONS: The CTA-to-ambulance notification time is the largest contributor to DIDO time. Higher age, onset-to-door time longer than 6 h, M2-segment occlusion and right-sided occlusions are independently associated with a longer DIDO time. Future interventions that aim to decrease DIDO time should take these findings into account.

Sensitivity of prehospital stroke scales for different intracranial large vessel occlusion locations.

INTRODUCTION: Prehospital stroke scales have been proposed to identify stroke patients with a large vessel occlusion to allow direct transport to an intervention centre capable of endovascular treatment (EVT). It is unclear whether these scales are able to detect not only proximal, but also more distal treatable occlusions. Our aim was to assess the sensitivity of prehospital stroke scales for different EVT-eligible occlusion locations in the anterior circulation. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The MR CLEAN Registry is a prospective, observational study in all centres that perform EVT in the Netherlands. We included adult patients with an anterior circulation stroke treated between March 2014 and November 2017. We used National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores at admission to reconstruct previously published prehospital stroke scales. We compared the sensitivity of each scale for different occlusion locations. Occlusions were assessed with CT angiography by an imaging core laboratory blinded to clinical findings. RESULTS: We included 3021 patients for the analysis of 14 scales. All scales had the highest sensitivity to detect internal carotid artery terminus occlusions (ranging from 0.21 to 0.97) and lowest for occlusions of the M2 segment (0.08 to 0.84, p-values < 0.001).Discussion and conclusion: Although prehospital stroke scales are generally sensitive for proximal large vessel occlusions, they are less sensitive to detect more distal occlusions.