Being aggressive in the face of a mini stroke event may help cut down the risks of major strokes, a new study has found.
Mini strokes or transient ischemic attacks (TIA) entail minor clinical manifestations such as temporary difficulty of speech. Although the signs and symptoms may appear mild, interventions involved in this case should not be taken lightly. This is because experts from the TIAregistry.org found that staying aggressive when it comes to treatment can prevent major attacks in the future.
"In the TIAregistry.org project, we observed a lower rate of cardiovascular events after a TIA or minor stroke than that in historical cohorts," the authors write.
Stroke Management
In the past, studies showed that from 1997 to 2003, the risk of a stroke occurrence was 12 percent to 20 percent during the first three months of a TIA event.
Such finding had prompted experts to come up with changes in how TIA was managed. From then on, medical staff implemented urgent care in specialized units, prompt assessments, early drug treatments and preventive strategies.
The patient outcomes and effects of using risk-scoring systems ever since these more aggressive treatments were implemented, however, remain unclear.
Investigating The Effects Of Aggressive Treatments
The TIAregistry.org project wanted to find out the prognosis of TIA patients one year and five years after the event. It also aims to refine risk assessments associated with prevention and management.
For the study, the team followed up on 4,789 patients at 61 medical facilities outside the U.S. for 2.5 years.
The team found that 78 percent of the participants were treated within 24 hours after the initial signs and symptoms of TIA manifested.
After a year, the risk of a cardiovascular event and stroke was 6.2 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively.
More specifically, the risk of another stroke after two, seven, 30 and 90 days, as well as after one year after treatment, was approximately half of what was expected in past studies.
A concrete example is the expected outcome after 90 days of treatment. In previous researches, experts had predicted that cardiovascular event or stroke risk was 12 percent to 20 percent. However, in the latest investigation, the risk was cut down to 3.7 percent.
Credit To Early Aggressive Treatment
Experts credit early aggressive treatment for the good prognosis of the patients. This is because more than 75 percent were checked within 24 hours after symptoms occurred, hence guaranteeing that early repeat of cardiovascular events were determined.
Although scoring systems are good indicators of possible recurrent strokes, experts suggest that limiting urgent assessments only to those who have higher risk scores may miss about 20 percent of patients who are bound to experience early recurrent strokes.
The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 21.
