Key result
Tenecteplase reallocates ~14% of stroke triage decisions toward direct mothership transport.
Why the study?
The shift from alteplase to tenecteplase for intravenous thrombolysis and new randomized evidence on prehospital stroke triage strategies motivated an updated conditional-probability decision model for acute ischemic stroke transport.
Does a tenecteplase-based treatment paradigm alter the optimal pre-hospital transport triage strategy compared to an alteplase paradigm in acute ischaemic stroke?
Does a tenecteplase-based treatment paradigm alter the optimal pre-hospital transport triage strategy compared to an alteplase paradigm in acute ischaemic stroke?
The transition to tenecteplase for acute ischemic stroke alters pre-hospital triage dynamics, potentially reducing the relative advantage of Mobile Stroke Units compared to direct Mothership transport for patients with low large-vessel-occlusion probabilities and long transfer distances.
Tenecteplase substitution may favor mothership routing in low-LVO long-transfer regions; simulation leaves open prospective validation of triage strategies.
Acute ischaemic stroke triage between Drip-and-Ship (DS), Mothership (MS) and Mobile Stroke Unit (MSU) strategies has been formalised over the past decade by conditional-probability decision models. Two recent developments motivate an updated treatment: the shift of the intravenous thrombolysis standard from alteplase to tenecteplase, and the maturation of randomised evidence on DS-versus-MS triage and on MSU effectiveness. A Bayesian conditional-probability simulation framework is presented that combines random-effects synthesis of the modern trial corpus for intravenous thrombolysis (alteplase, tenecteplase) and endovascular thrombectomy with a log-normal decomposition of onset-to-reperfusion into strategy- and pharmacology-specific process-time components. The prehospital large-vessel-occlusion probability is updated from validated screening scales, and the optimal strategy together with a 95% posterior credible interval is computed at every coordinate of the decision space spanned by the inter-facility transit-time differential and the LVO posterior probability. Sobol first-order and total-effect indices decompose outcome variance over the sampled input space, and first- and second-order stochastic dominance between strategies is tested under the same posterior. Under the production calibration the tenecteplase paradigm reallocated 14.1% of the decision plane relative to alteplase, concentrated in the low-probability, long-differential region; the prehospital large-vessel-occlusion posterior accounted for the dominant share of outcome variance (Sobol first-order index 0.84-0.93); and no coordinate of the decision plane reached 95% posterior agreement on a single optimal strategy. The framework is open and reproducible and depends only on published trial-level evidence. It is presented as a decision-analytic and hypothesis-generating tool for structuring the tenecteplase-era triage question rather than as a validated operational triage rule, and prospective calibration against region-specific stroke-system data would be required before any deployment.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Tuğba Çalışır (2026) studied Acute ischaemic stroke with suspected large-vessel occlusion. Tenecteplase-based prehospital triage paradigm (Drip-and-Ship, Mothership, Mobile Stroke Unit) vs. Alteplase-based prehospital triage paradigm was evaluated on Optimal prehospital transport strategy maximizing expected probability of functional independence (mRS 0-2) at 90 days. Substituting tenecteplase for alteplase reallocated 14.1% of the optimal triage decision plane, shifting recommendations toward mothership transport in regions with low large-vessel-occlusion probability and long inter-facility transit times.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: