OTTAWA — Stroke victims in Canada don’t get to hospitals quickly enough — and even when they do they can still wait hours for treatment, says a major study released Thursday.
The report by the Canadian Stroke Network suggests neither victims nor hospital staffs treat strokes as serious medical emergencies.
“Every minute in delay in stroke treatment results in the loss of two million brain cells,” said Robert Cote, a neurology professor at McGill University and a senior physician at the Montreal General Hospital.
“Yet, many Canadians do not consider stroke as a medical emergency.”
The window for the best chance of a full recovery from a stroke is within four-and-a-half hours after symptoms are first noticed. During that window, doctors can administer a drug called tPA that breaks up clots and restores the bloodflow to the brain.
But the study found two-thirds of Canadian stroke victims wait too long — in some cases, well beyond the window in which tPA can be safely administered.
“The reason this is so important is if that initial couple of hours are missed, then (a) stroke is for life,” said Dr. Antoine Hakim, CEO and scientific director of the Canadian Stroke Network. But hospitals are taking too long to treat stroke victims. According to the report, just 22 per cent of patients got a CT scan or MRI within an hour of being admitted to hospital. And only 40 per cent of stroke victims who got to the hospital within three-and-a-half hours after symptoms first appeared were treated within an hour, the study found.
“Simply stated, this is not acceptable and needs urgent improvement,” the report says.
The Canadian Stroke Network — made up of university and hospital-based researchers — gathered data on 38,210 stroke patients from 295 hospitals across the country to prepare the report.
Among its findings:
• 77 per cent of patients aren’t treated in stroke units.
• only 12 per cent of patients admitted to hospitals with tPA actually got the drug.
• the median arrival time at hospital was seven hours after symptom onset, putting most patients outside the time window for treatment.
The Canadian Stroke Network says people who think they may be having a stroke should call 911 immediately. Stroke symptoms include difficulty speaking, sudden loss of vision in one eye, and sudden weakness in the face, arm or leg.
Other symptoms include a sudden loss of sensation in the face, arm or leg; a sudden, severe and unusual headache; and, sudden loss of balance or sense of vertigo, especially if accompanied by one of the other warning signs.