Comparison of safety and clinical and radiographic outcomes in endovascular acute stroke therapy for proximal middle cerebral artery occlusion with intubation and general anesthesia versus the nonintubated state.
OBJECTIVE
There is considerable heterogeneity in practice patterns between sedation in the intubated state vs nonintubated state during endovascular acute stroke therapy. We sought to compare clinical and radiographic outcomes between these 2 sedation modalities.


METHODS
Consecutive patients with acute stroke due to middle cerebral artery-M1 segment occlusion treated with endovascular therapy between January 2006 and July 2009 were identified in our interventional acute stroke database. Level of sedation was determined as intubated (IS) vs nonintubated (NIS) state. Final infarct volumes on follow-up imaging and clinical outcomes at 3 to 6 months were obtained.


RESULTS
A total of 126 patients were included (73 [58%] NIS vs 53 [42%] IS). In IS patients, intensive care unit length of stay was longer (6.5 vs 3.2 days, P=0.0008). Intraprocedural complications were lower in NIS patients compared with IS patients (5/73 [6%] vs 8/53 [15%], respectively), but the difference was not significant (P=0.13). In univariate and multivariate analyses, NIS was significantly associated with in-hospital mortality (odds ratio=0.32, P=0.011), good clinical outcome (odds ratio=3.06, P=0.042), and final infarct volume (odds ratio=0.25, P=0.004).


CONCLUSIONS
In endovascular acute stroke therapy, treatment of patients in NIS appears to be as safe as treatment in IS and may result in more favorable clinical and radiographic outcomes. Our preliminary observations derived from this retrospective study await confirmation from prospective trials.
Jumaa
Mouhammad A
MA
Center for Neuroendovascular Therapy, UPMC Stroke Institute, Suite C424, 200 Lothrop St, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Zhang
Fan
F
Ruiz-Ares
Gerardo
G
Gelzinis
Theresa
T
Malik
Amer M
AM
Aleu
Aitziber
A
Oakley
Jennifer I
JI
Jankowitz
Brian
B
Lin
Ridwan
R
Reddy
Vivek
V
Zaidi
Syed F
SF
Hammer
Maxim D
MD
Wechsler
Lawrence R
LR
Horowitz
Michael
M
Jovin
Tudor G
TG
D000368:Aged; D000768:Anesthesia, General / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*; D002533:Cerebral Angiography; D002539:Cerebral Arterial Diseases / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D016292:Procedural Sedation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods; D016208:Databases, Factual; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D007440:Intubation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods*; D007902:Length of Stay; D008297:Male; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D020521:Stroke / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*