The Effect of Endovascular Thrombectomy Studies on the Decision to Transfer Patients in a Telestroke Network

Background/Introduction: In 2015, five high-quality trials demonstrated the effectiveness of endovascular thrombectomy for certain patients. Patient selection for transfer to a hub hospital is mostly focused on the patient's eligibility for a potential thrombectomy. However, it remains challenging to correctly select those patients with the highest probability of undergoing a thrombectomy. Materials and Methods: In this study, we investigated which factors promote or impede the transfer of patients and whether the impact of these factors has changed since the publication of the five randomized thrombectomy studies in 2015. We analyzed 12,048 cases of telestroke consultation from the stroke telemedicine network in Thuringia (SATELIT) and compared the decision-making process related to patient transfer based on consultations that occurred before and after 2015. Results: In both time intervals, we found that the patient's age and the identification of a proximal vessel occlusion independently influenced the decision to transfer a patient. The age factor remained unchanged over time. A known proximal intracranial vessel occlusion had a strong positive influence on the decision to transfer patients. Discussion: The decision of whether to transfer a patient is currently focused on the identification of intracranial vessel occlusion. However, the age of the patient remains an unchanged but important factor that might be overemphasized. The time elapsed from symptom onset to consultation was not found to have an independent influence on the decision-making process, so it might be underemphasized. Conclusions: The decision-making process to transfer a patient within our telestroke network has been strongly affected by the publication of the endovascular thrombectomy studies, but those studies are not solely optimized for this aim.