Stroke: After a stroke, how do serious adverse events affect the functional outcome?

During the acute treatment period and the first few weeks of acute ischemic stroke , many complications may occur, which may negatively affect the clinical process and recovery, and even lead to fatal results

These complications may be directly related to stroke or treatment, such as possible stroke symptoms such as secondary intracranial hemorrhage, increased intracranial pressure, or pneumonia caused by dysphagia

They can also be related to underlying diseases or comorbidities, such as arrhythmia , or caused by immobility or use of medical equipment, such as deep vein thrombosis caused by peripheral venous catheters , pulmonary embolism, and catheter-related infections

In clinical trials, complications were systematically recorded as adverse events (AE) and severe AEs (SAE)

Previous studies on the effect of intravenous thrombolytic therapy in stroke patients showed that compared with patients receiving placebo treatment, there was no difference in the frequency of SAEs in patients receiving thrombolytic therapy, but the rate of intracranial hemorrhage was higher in thrombolytic therapy

In the post-hoc analysis of this WAKE-UP trial, Iris Lettow of Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf and others explored the impact of SAE on functional outcomes after 90 days and determined baseline characteristics that may predict the occurrence of SAE in patients with acute stroke

They conducted a post hoc analysis of WAKE-UP.

90 days after the stroke, the functional outcome was evaluated by the modified Rankin scale

Among 503 randomized patients, 199 SAEs were reported as n=110 (22%) patients

Patients who have suffered at least one SAE have a lower chance of achieving good results (a modified Rankin scale score of 0-1) within 90 days (adjusted odds ratio, 0.

Higher age (P=0.

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