A part of ischemic stroke patients score 0 on the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) within 24 h following thrombolysis. Their clinical characteristics and long-term outcome are poorly studied. We report a single-center assessment of such patients.
The cohort comprises 874 consecutive patients from the Helsinki Stroke Thrombolysis Registry, out of whom 113 scored 0 on 24-hour NIHSS. We analyzed their baseline demographic, clinical and radiological characteristics and 3-month outcome (modified Rankin Scale, mRS). Associations between the study parameters were tested by multivariate analysis.
Patients with a 24-hour NIHSS score = 0 (n = 113) were younger than the rest of the population (n = 761; median: 65.6 vs. 71.5 years; p