Does general anesthesia worsen outcomes compared to conscious sedation/local anesthesia in acute ischemic stroke patients undergoing intra-arterial therapy?
Current evidence suggests general anesthesia may worsen outcomes in acute ischemic stroke patients undergoing intra-arterial therapy compared to conscious sedation, but adequately powered RCTs are needed.
Acute ischemic stroke patients undergoing intra-arterial therapy may have worse outcomes when treated with GA as compared with conscious sedation/local anesthesia. However, major limitations of current evidence (ie, retrospective studies and selection bias) indicate a need for adequately powered, multicenter randomized controlled trials to answer this question.
Brinjikji et al. (Thu,) studied this question.