Stroke Medication Treatment Window Could Be Wider

 'Improve' being shorthand for not getting 100% recovered. The tyranny of low expectations in full view. When you are the 1 in 4 per WHO that has a stroke

 you'll want 100% recovery! Schadenfreude will be a bitch for them knowing they could have solved stroke while still working!

Stroke Medication Treatment Window Could Be Wider

Research from Zhejiang University in China shows that the treatment window for using the stroke medication alteplase could be as wide as 24 hours.

The research, presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2025, showed that treatment with alteplase up to 24 hours after a stroke could improve patient outcomes by 50% or more.

Each year more than 795,000 people in the United States have a stroke, where blood flow is interrupted to the brain (ischemic) or a blood vessel or abnormal vascular formation ruptures in the brain (hemorrhagic). The majority of strokes are ischemic (87%) and can be treated with varying levels of success if medication is given quickly enough.

Alteplase is designed to mimic the action of human tissue-type plasminogen activator protein and acts to break up blood clots, such as those that cause ischemic stroke. Current U.S. regulations recommend treating patients with alteplase within 3 hours of the initial stroke and other countries suggest similar treatment windows, such as 4.5 hours in China.

The literature suggests that a longer treatment window for alteplase could still offer benefits, but exactly how long this should be is debated and more research is needed to define this better.

This study aimed to investigate this issue further. It was a randomized, open-label, blinded outcome trial carried out at 26 medical centers in China. It enrolled 372 patients with signs of acute ischemic stroke who were between 4.5 and 24 hours from the initial event. Of these patients, 186 were given intravenous alteplase and 186 standard care.

The primary outcome of the trial was achieving a score of 0 or 1 on the modified Rankin scale, which assesses combined stroke symptoms and scores them from 0 (no symptoms) to 6 (death). Overall, 40.3% of the alteplase group vs 26.3% of the standard care group achieved the primary endpoint. Around 10% of both treatment groups had died 90 days after enrollment.

“We believe these findings mean more people may return to normal or near-normal lives after a stroke, even if they receive treatment later than originally thought beneficial,” said the trial’s principal investigator Min Lou, MD, PhD, a professor at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University’s School of Medicine in China, in a press statement.

“This method of treatment could become the new standard, especially in hospitals that use CT perfusion imaging. This technology helps healthcare professionals see how blood flows in different parts of the brain after an ischemic stroke. This could extend treatment eligibility to millions more patients across the globe.”

These results could be particularly relevant in areas where getting to fast emergency treatment or accessing drugs like alteplase quickly is difficult. The researchers now want to see if their findings also apply to similar anti-clotting medications like tenecteplase.