Stroke centers more likely to treat

Too few stroke patients receive the only clot-busting drug approved for treatment. While not every person is a candidate for tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), the drug is still under-used.

To get a better chance of proper treatment for a stroke, it's a good idea to know your local stroke centers (click here to find yours). Researchers have found that certified stroke centers use more clot busters:

After accounting for year, age, sex, race, insurance, income, comorbidities, mortality risk, and various hospital characteristics, certification as a primary stroke center remained a significant predictor of tPA use (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.61 to 2.16), the researchers reported online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

"That's important because still only a minority of stroke patients get [IV tPA] and it's still the only approved treatment for stroke," commented James Grotta, MD, chairman of neurology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, in an interview.

Yes, it's important - perhaps one of the most important things of a loved one's life, or even your own.