Improved Prospects for Thrombectomy in Large Ischemic Stroke

Mechanical endovascular thrombectomy, when performed within 24 hours after the onset of symptoms in patients with small-to-moderate acute ischemic strokes that are due to proximal occlusion of a large cerebral vessel, has been shown to result in rates of recanalization of 70 to 80% and to significantly improve functional independence at 90 days.1,2 Thrombectomy represents one of the most effective treatments in medicine: the number needed to treat to prevent disability in one patient with stroke is 2.3. However, these results do not apply to patients with large strokes, who have been mostly excluded from clinical thrombectomy trials.