What is the acceptable rate of treatment of stroke mimics with tPA? Zero? A few percent? No limit? It’s mostly harmless, after all – with only a ~1% rate of intracerebral hemorrhage. And, thanks to the free-market forces of comparison shopping and collective bargaining power of individual stroke patients, the cost of alteplase has increased >100% in the past decade to ~$6400 per dose. With all this going for it, it’s no wonder the American Heart Association gives a Class II recommendation for empirically treating, rather than pursuing additional diagnostic tests.
The added bonus – the more mimics you treat, the better your stroke outcomes appear!
This retrospective review of 725 tPA-treated patients at three hospitals evaluated the difference in rate of treatment of stroke mimics at an MRI-based “hub” hospital and CT-based “spokes”. Of 514 patients treated at the hub, only 3 (0.3%) were ultimately given a non-stroke diagnosis. Of 211 treated at the spokes, 33 (16%) were stroke mimics. The authors also noted, splitting their review period into 2005-09 and 2010-14, the rate of treatment of stroke mimics at spokes had increased from 9% to 20%.
To no great surprise, clinical outcomes – as measured both by mRS ≤1 five days after discharge and hemorrhagic transformation – significantly favored the spoke hospitals. Outcomes also improved between the time periods compared – hand-in-hand with the increase in treatment of stroke mimics.
These authors go on to mention treatment of stroke mimics has real financial cost to the health system and to individual patients, the misdiagnosis of stroke notwithstanding – growing ever more important as our health system lurches back towards penalties for pre-existing conditions. The authors acknowledge the luxury of having rapid MRI available for stroke, but go on to implicate aggressive efforts to improve door-to-needle times as contributing to misdiagnosis and harmful waste.
But, none of that matters when you can get a shiny promotional merit badge for your stroke center!
“Effects of increasing IV tPA-treated stroke mimic rates at CT-based centers on clinical outcomes”
http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2017/06/28/WNL.0000000000004149.abstract