Abstract 155: Rate, Clinical features, Safety Profile and Outcome of Intravenous Thrombolysis for Acute Ischemic Stroke in Patients with Negative Brain Imaging

INTRODUCTION: The exigent time demand for intravenous (IV) r-tPA administration in acute ischemic stroke (AIS) may not give the necessary time for thorough evaluation in patients presenting with AIS symptoms. As a result, IV thrombolysis of transient ischemic attack (TIA) or conditions mimicking stroke but with a subsequent different diagnosis might occur. In addition, IV r-tPA may sufficiently resolve ischemia such that subsequent brain diffusion weighted MR imaging (DWI-MRI) is negative in some patients. It would be expected that brain CT scan and the more sensitive DWI-MRI would be negative in all these cases. We sought to determine the rate, clinical characteristics, safety profile and outcome of brain imaging-negative patients treated with IV r-tPA for AIS in our large volume stroke center. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records and brain imaging of patients who received IV rtPA for AIS within 4.5 hours of symptom onset from January 2006 to April 2014 at our center. A subset of pati...