More Canadian stroke patients could get clot-grabbing treatment
CBC posted an excellent article and our very own, Dr. A. Hassan has be quoted in the article.
Here is a small excerpt:
The extension will especially affect people who live in remote and rural communities, Lindsay said.
Because EVT is a highly specialized procedure, it is only performed in 23 hospitals across Canada. That means many stroke victims who live far from an urban centre, and who had to be transferred, “would never have made the six-hour time window,” she said.
That’s been a worry for Dr. Ayman Hassan, a neurologist at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre in northern Ontario.
The hospital has one neurosurgeon who does EVT, but if he’s not there, patients who need the procedure have to be transferred to Winnipeg or to health-care centres in southern Ontario. Stroke patients also come to Thunder Bay from remote communities.
In the past, some patients who would have been eligible for EVT have run out of time before being able to get the treatment, Hassan said. With the new 24-hour time frame, he expects about 30 patients a year at his hospital will escape the “catastrophic” disability or death that this type of stroke brings.
To read the full article, click the bellow link.