BACKGROUND/PURPOSE To determine whether utilization of emergency medical service (EMS) can increase use and expedite delivery of the thrombolytic therapy in acute ischemic stroke patients. METHODS We analyzed consecutive patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with an ischemic stroke within 72 hours of symptom onset from a prospective stroke registry. Variables associated with ea...

All thrombolytic agents in current clinical usage are plasminogen activators. Although effective, plasminogen activators uniformly increase the risk of bleeding complications, especially intracranial hemorrhage, and no laboratory test is applicable to avoid such bleeding. We report results of a randomized, blinded, dose-ranging comparison of tissue-type plasminogen activator (TPA) with a direct...

Tissue type plasminogen activator (t-PA) is an effective thrombolytic agent in experimental animals. The duration of the thrombolytic effect of infused t-PA is unknown. We compared the duration of the thrombolytic effect of t-PA with streptokinase by measuring the lysis of 125I-fibrin-labeled thrombi in rabbit jugular veins at different times after a bolus injection of the fibrinolytic agents. ...

Thrombolytic therapy, which involves the administration of agents designed to increase fibrinolytic capacity, has been utilized in respiratory medicine for more than 50 years. A variety of agents have been used to effect thrombolysis, including urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) and streptokinase. Tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) has also been used to effect thrombolysis. Both uPA and tPA ...

The process of in vivo clot dissolution, termed thrombolysis,l is complex, involving the interaction of clot components with the surrounding plasma. Participating in this interaction are plasminogen, plasminogen activator, plasmin, the plasmin inhibitory activity of plasma, and fibrin (1). Although much is known of the nature and quantities of individual components, the complexity of the thromb...

Background. The value of thrombolytic therapy in unstable angina is unclear. Methods and Results. To study this problem, 159 patients were studied in a double-blind, placebocontrolled multicenter trial. Patients without a previous myocardial infarction, with a typical history of unstable angina, and ECG abnormalities indicative of ischemia were included. After baseline angiography, study medica...

Background: Thrombolytic therapy used in patients with acute myocardial infarction may increase the risk of stroke. Scant information is available from community-based studies. Summary of Report: Among 5,635 consecutive patients admitted with acute myocardial infarction to hospitals in Seattle and surrounding suburban King County, Washington, 116 (2.1%) experienced strokes during hospitalizatio...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Numerous therapeutic options have been suggested for the treatment of central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) such as ocular massage, anterior chamber paracentesis, physical exercise, and medication-induced reduction of intraocular pressure. Because of the lack of a proven effective treatment for CRAO, there has been a strong effort to develop alternative therapies. Recently, ...

Introduction: Prosthetic valve thrombosis is a rare and severe complication of valve replacement, most often encountered with a mechanical prosthesis. The significant morbidity and mortality associated with this condition warrant rapid diagnostic evaluation. Although surgery is the first-line therapy in symptomatic obstructive mechanical valve thrombosis, thrombolytic therapy has been used as a...

This paper aims to study the thrombolytic effect of low-frequency ultrasound combined with targeted urokinase-containing microbubble contrast agents on treatment of thrombosis in rabbit femoral artery; and to determine the optimal combination of parameters for achieving thrombolysis in this model. A biotinylated-avidin method was used to prepare microbubble contrast agents carrying urokinase an...