How Patient Demographics, Imaging, and Beliefs Influence Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator Use: A Survey of North American Neurologists
Therapies Wednesday, October 5th, 2016Stroke, 1 August 2016
Background and Purpose—Understanding physician decision making is increasingly recognized as an important topic of study, especially in stroke care. We sought to characterize the process of acute stroke decision making among neurologists in the United States and Canada from clinical and epistemological perspectives. …
Conclusions—Diagnostic certainty and likelihood of treatment with tissue-type plasminogen activator increase with additional clinical data, with the history being the most important factor for diagnostic and treatment decisions. Respondents had difficulty in interpreting the results of CT perfusion scans although they had little impact on treatment decisions. We did not identify treatment bias based on patient age, race, or sex. Read more.
