Background: and Purpose In real-world practice, the benefit of mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is uncertain in stroke patients with very favorable or poor prognostic profiles at baseline. We studied the effectiveness of MT versus medical treatment stratifying by different baseline prognostic factors. Methods Retrospective analysis of 2,588 patients with an ischemic stroke due to large vessel occlusion nested in the population-based registry of stroke code activations in Catalonia from January 2017 to June 2019. The effect of MT on good functional outcome (modified Rankin Score ≤2) and survival at 3 months was studied using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) analysis in three pre-defined baseline prognostic groups: poor (if pre-stroke disability, age >85 years, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS] >25, time from onset >6 hours, Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score <6, proximal vertebrobasilar occlusion, supratherapeutic international normalized ratio >3), good (if NIHSS <6 or distal occlusion, in the absence of poor prognostic factors), or reference (not meeting other groups’ criteria). Results:  Patients receiving MT (n=1,996, 77%) were younger, had less pre-stroke disability, and received systemic thrombolysis less frequently. These differences were balanced after the IPTW stratified by prognosis. MT was associated with good functional outcome in the reference (odds ratio [OR], 2.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.0 to 4.4), and especially in the poor baseline prognostic stratum (OR, 3.9; 95% CI, 2.6 to 5.9), but not in the good prognostic stratum. MT was associated with survival only in the poor prognostic stratum (OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 2.0 to 3.3). Conclusions  Despite their worse overall outcomes, the impact of thrombectomy over medical management was more substantial in patients with poorer baseline prognostic factors than patients with good prognostic factors.

Background: and Purpose In real-world practice, the benefit of mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is uncertain in stroke patients with very favorable or poor prognostic profiles at baseline. We studied the effectiveness of MT versus medical treatment stratifying by different baseline prognostic factors. Methods Retrospective analysis of 2,588 patients with an ischemic stroke due to large vessel occlusion nested in the population-based registry of stroke code activations in Catalonia from January 2017 to June 2019. The effect of MT on good functional outcome (modified Rankin Score ≤2) and survival at 3 months was studied using inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) analysis in three pre-defined baseline prognostic groups: poor (if pre-stroke disability, age >85 years, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale [NIHSS] >25, time from onset >6 hours, Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score <6, proximal vertebrobasilar occlusion, supratherapeutic international normalized ratio >3), good (if NIHSS <6 or distal occlusion, in the absence of poor prognostic factors), or reference (not meeting other groups’ criteria). Results:  Patients receiving MT (n=1,996, 77%) were younger, had less pre-stroke disability, and received systemic thrombolysis less frequently. These differences were balanced after the IPTW stratified by prognosis. MT was associated with good functional outcome in the reference (odds ratio [OR], 2.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.0 to 4.4), and especially in the poor baseline prognostic stratum (OR, 3.9; 95% CI, 2.6 to 5.9), but not in the good prognostic stratum. MT was associated with survival only in the poor prognostic stratum (OR, 2.6; 95% CI, 2.0 to 3.3). Conclusions  Despite their worse overall outcomes, the impact of thrombectomy over medical management was more substantial in patients with poorer baseline prognostic factors than patients with good prognostic factors.

Objective: Previous studies have shown that meteorological factors may increase COVID-19 mortality, likely due to the increased transmission of the virus. However, this could also be related to an increased infection fatality rate (IFR). We investigated the association between meteorological factors (temperature, humidity, solar irradiance, pressure, wind, precipitation, cloud coverage) and IFR across Spanish provinces ( Methods: We estimated IFR as excess deaths (the gap between observed and expected deaths, considering COVID-19-unrelated deaths prevented by lockdown measures) divided by the number of infections (SARS-CoV-2 seropositive individuals plus excess deaths) and conducted Spearman correlations between meteorological factors and IFR across the provinces. Results: We estimated 2,418,250 infections and 43,237 deaths. The IFR was 0.03% in < 50-year-old, 0.22% in 50-59-year-old, 0.9% in 60-69-year-old, 3.3% in 70-79-year-old, 12.6% in 80-89-year-old, and 26.5% in ≥ 90-year-old. We did not find statistically significant relationships between meteorological factors and adjusted IFR. However, we found strong relationships between low temperature and unadjusted IFR, likely due to Spain's colder provinces' aging population. Conclusion The association between meteorological factors and adjusted COVID-19 IFR is unclear. Neglecting age differences or ignoring COVID-19-unrelated deaths may severely bias COVID-19 epidemiological analyses.
Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; COVID-19/virology* ; Humans ; Meteorological Concepts ; Middle Aged ; Pandemics/statistics & numerical data* ; SARS-CoV-2/physiology* ; Spain/epidemiology* ; Weather ; Young Adult