The "drip-and-ship" approach: starting IV t-PA for acute ischemic stroke at outside hospitals prior to transfer to a regional stroke center.

PURPOSE: Acute stroke therapy with intravenous (IV) tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA) is vastly underutilized. Increasingly, patients are being started on IV t-PA and being transferred to regional Stroke Center programs, where additional therapies can be offered in a multimodal format. We describe our experience at the Stroke Center at Hartford Hospital with interhospital patient transfers who received IV t-PA prior to transfer to our medical center.
METHODS: A retrospective analysis of our Acute Stroke Therapies database was undertaken, encompassing the intial four-year period of our Stroke Center program (May 1, 2001 to April 30, 2005). We evaluated the patient characteristics, clinical outcomes, and adjunctive therapies of patients who were started on IV t-PA at referring hospitals prior to their emergent transfer to our Stroke Center.
RESULTS: From a total of 229 patients who received IV and/or IA thrombolysis and newer catheter-delivered devices or clinical trials at our Stroke Center, a total of 33 (14.4%) were started on IV t-PA at an outside hospital prior to transfer. Symptomatic hemorrhage occurred in one of the 33 patients (3.0%), and in-hospital mortality rate for these patients was 6.1%. A total of 26 patients (78.8%) had a positive outcome in that they were discharged either to home or to acute rehabilitation.
CONCLUSIONS: Use of IV t-PA in a "drip-and-ship" approach is growing at the regional Stroke Center at Hartford Hospital. This protocol is safe and offers several advances for the care of patients with AIS: (a) empowering emergency physicians and neurologists at outside hospitals, via access to a 24/7 Acute Stroke Hotline, to treat patients with AIS; (b) facilitating the early initiation of IV t-PA; and (c) offering adjunctive therapeutic approaches, following arrival at our facility, for patients not sufficiently improving with IV t-PA alone.