According to current American and European guidelines, mechanical thrombectomy is recommended only for patients with an Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) of 6 or higher. However, recent literature suggests that the potential benefits of reperfusion therapy should not be solely determined by baseline ASPECTS. In this case report, we present a young female patient with a low initial ASPECTS (4-5), who underwent mechanical thrombectomy and showed marked improvement in both CT imaging and clinical symptoms. Our findings potentially show that mechanical thrombectomy may be beneficial even for patients with an initial ASPECTS ≤ 5. These results may contribute to the growing evidence supporting the use of mechanical thrombectomy as a viable treatment option for acute ischemic stroke patients with low baseline ASPECTS.
Keywords: acute stroke; aspect score; endovascular thrombectomy; mechanical thrombectomy; national institutes of health stroke scale (nihss); stroke; thrombolysis in cerebral infarction scale; tici score; tpa.
Copyright © 2023, Alqahtani et al.