Female Stroke Patients Are Not Less Likely to Get Diagnostic Tests or Receive Thrombolytic Treatment Than Male Patients

Objective : We set out to determine if female acute stroke patients have equal access to diagnostic studies and IV-tPA as males. Background : Published data suggest that females with acute stroke are less likely than males to get diagnostic tests during their evaluation for acute stroke. We report on utilization of diagnostic studies and outcomes comparing males and females. Methods : We undertook a retrospective analysis of the last three years of stroke data at Inova Alexandria Hospital. We analyzed data for all patients treated with IV-tPA. The total number of stroke patients during this time was 606. Of these, 60.1[percnt] were female. Results: We evaluated numbers of MRIs performed, carotid dopplers, ECHOs, lipid levels, average door-to-needle (DTN) times and outcome data for males and females. There was not a major change in utilization of testing, although the females were significantly more likely to have lipid levels drawn. There was a longer average DTN time in females, but they showed more improvement comparing initial with final NIHSS. The female patients had a higher average initial NIHSS (12.5 vs 7.6), suggesting larger strokes in that group. Importantly, there was not a difference in the [percnt] of female patients who received tPA compared with males. Conclusions : 1) Female acute stroke patients are not less likely to have MRIs, carotid dopplers, ECHOs or lipid levels than males in our series. 2) DTN times for female patients were slightly longer than for males, but the average for both groups was within the golden hour. 3) NIHSS scores suggested that female patients on average had larger strokes, but they showed more dramatic improvements in NIHSS scores after treatment than males. 4) Female patients were not less likely to receive IV-tPA than males. 5) Clinical improvement is just as robust, if not greater, than with male patients. Disclosure: Dr. Eberly has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bentaleb has nothing to disclose. Dr. Golding has nothing to disclose. Dr. Jackson has nothing to disclose. Dr. Cochran has nothing to disclose.