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Background and Purpose: The best management of patients with persistent distal occlusion after mechanical thrombectomy with or without IV thrombolysis remains unknown. We sought to evaluate the variability and agreement in decision-making for persistent distal occlusions., Materials and Methods: A portfolio of 60 cases was sent to clinicians with varying backgrounds and experience. Responders were asked whether they considered conservative management or rescue therapy (stent retriever, aspiration, or intra-arterial thrombolytics) a treatment option as well as their willingness to enroll patients in a randomized trial. Agreement was assessed using κ statistics., Results: The electronic survey was answered by 31 physicians (8 vascular neurologists and 23 interventional neuroradiologists). Decisions for rescue therapies were more frequent ( n  = 1116/1860, 60%) than for conservative management ( n  = 744/1860, 40%; P  < .001). Interrater agreement regarding the final management decision was "slight" (κ = 0.12; 95% CI, 0.09-0.14) and did not improve when subgroups of clinicians were studied according to background, experience, and specialty or when cases were grouped according to the level of occlusion. On delayed re-questioning, 23 of 29 respondents (79.3%) disagreed with themselves on at least 20% of cases. Respondents were willing to offer trial participation in 1295 of 1860 (69.6%) cases., Conclusions: Individuals did not agree regarding the best management of patients with persistent distal occlusion after mechanical thrombectomy and IV thrombolysis. There is sufficient uncertainty to justify a dedicated randomized trial., (© 2024 by American Journal of Neuroradiology.)

Background and Purpose: The efficiency of prehospital care chain response and the adequacy of hospital resources are challenged amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, with suspected consequences for patients with ischemic stroke eligible for mechanical thrombectomy (MT)., Methods: We conducted a prospective national-level data collection of patients treated with MT, ranging 45 days across epidemic containment measures instatement, and of patients treated during the same calendar period in 2019. The primary end point was the variation of patients receiving MT during the epidemic period. Secondary end points included care delays between onset, imaging, and groin puncture. To analyze the primary end point, we used a Poisson regression model. We then analyzed the correlation between the number of MTs and the number of COVID-19 cases hospitalizations, using the Pearson correlation coefficient (compared with the null value)., Results: A total of 1513 patients were included at 32 centers, in all French administrative regions. There was a 21% significant decrease (0.79; [95%CI, 0.76-0.82]; P <0.001) in MT case volumes during the epidemic period, and a significant increase in delays between imaging and groin puncture, overall (mean 144.9±SD 86.8 minutes versus 126.2±70.9; P <0.001 in 2019) and in transferred patients (mean 182.6±SD 82.0 minutes versus 153.25±67; P <0.001). After the instatement of strict epidemic mitigation measures, there was a significant negative correlation between the number of hospitalizations for COVID and the number of MT cases ( R 2 -0.51; P =0.04). Patients treated during the COVID outbreak were less likely to receive intravenous thrombolysis and to have unwitnessed strokes (both P <0.05)., Conclusions: Our study showed a significant decrease in patients treated with MTs during the first stages of the COVID epidemic in France and alarming indicators of lengthened care delays. These findings prompt immediate consideration of local and regional stroke networks preparedness in the varying contexts of COVID-19 pandemic evolution.