Abstract WP68: The Risk of Hemorrhagic Transformation After Thrombolysis for Acute Ischemic Stroke in Chinese vs. North American Patients: A Comparative Study

Introduction: There is a widespread belief that Asian population is more susceptible to bleeding, which limits the use of t-PA in patients with ischemic stroke (AIS) in China because of the fear of hemorrhagic transformation (HT). However, this has not been examined in clinical practice. We undertook the current study to compare the incidence of symptomatic HT (SHT) among thrombolysis-treated AIS patients in 2 academic institutions in China and United States. Methods: We compared the clinical and radiological features of 191 consecutive patients treated with IV t-PA within 4.5h of onset ± endovascular therapy from an American (ASC; n = 86) and a Chinese stroke centers (CSC; n = 105). SHT was defined using various definitions based on the NINDS t-PA, ECASS-2, and a modified version of SITS-MOST study (mSITS-MOST) criteria. We used penalized logistic regression to adjust for confounding variables and to identify predictors of SHT. Results: ASC patients were older; had higher prevalence of women; diabetes, h...