Alert on elongated in-hospital acute stroke management delays. An Aquitain cohort study

The objectives were to analyze changes from 2012 to 2017 in different management times of stroke patients included in the Aquitaine stroke Observatory (ObA2). The studied times (onset-to-needle time-ONT, onset-to-door time-ODT, door-to-imaging time-DIT, door-to-needle time-DNT and imaging-to-needle time-INT) were described as median, interquartile ranges and proportion of patients within the recommended median time goals (ODT under 4hours, DIT within 20min; for thrombolyzed patients, DIT under 20min and a ONT under 4:30) to be compared with an objective of 50% of patients within said time goal. Globally, ODT was 160min, with 43.6% to 59.6% of patients within the ODT goal along the study period. With no improvement over time, the proportion of patients within the DIT goal stayed stable and at a low level (range: 5.5–7.0%) for all patients, decreasing from 25.2% to 11.4% for thrombolyzed patients. The proportion of thrombolyzed patients within the DNT goal varied from 15.1% to 30.3% during study period. These results highlight the urgent need for action to improve in-hospital management of stroke patients, focusing on delays between admission and imaging.