New Stroke Guidelines Save Lives

New guidelines from the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association could change how acute stroke treatment is done, meaning instead of dying or suffering lifelong disability, one of three stroke patients could fully recover. More people could also be eligible for life-saving clot removal and treatments, according to an NBC News report.

Doctors can minimize or prevent damage from six to 24 hours to remove clots. In the Stanford University studies, brain-imaging software to evaluate people within 2 minutes. CT or MRI scans are used to determine the blood flow to the brain.

More people could be eligible for life-saving clot removal and dissolving treatments following ischemic strokes.

"We now know it’s not so much the amount of time elapsed since a stroke began, as the amount of remaining at-risk but salvageable brain tissue that determines who will benefit from stroke therapy," said Dr. Gregory Albers, the study’s lead author and director of the Stanford Stroke Center.

According to the NBC report, a person suffers a stroke every 40 seconds in the United States, with an 85-percent result of a blockage in a blood vessel to the brain, and are ischemic. With the remaining strokes, 15-percent occurs when a blood vessel in the brain tears, allowing blood accumulates in the brain.

“I really cannot overstate the size of this effect. The study shows that one out of three patients are saved from the devastation of a stroke, and can walk out of the hospital, completely recovered,” said Dr. Walter Koroshetz, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. “The results of the trial were astounding and will have an immediate impact in the clinic and will help us save many lives."