Streptokinase increases luxury perfusion after stroke

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Recent acute stroke trials have reported that intravenous streptokinase is associated with an in creased risk of adverse outcomes. We aimed to study the effect of streptokinase on the nature of reperfusion and the relation be tween reperfusion and clinical outcome. Methods: We studied 24 patients in the Australian Streptokinase Trial with acute middle cerebral cortical infarction using 99mTc- hexamethylpropyleneamine oxime single-photon emission CT. Eleven of the 24 patients were scanned before therapy and again 24 hours later. The remaining 13 were scanned once either before therapy (1 patient) or after therapy (12 patients). All patients had outcome scans after 3 mo..