CASE REPORT: Challenges to Thrombolysis in A Resource-Poor Setting- A Case Report

West African Journal of Medicine 2023 December; 40(12): 1378-1382 PMID: 38266221

Abstract

A major complication of acute ischemic stroke is death and disability. The emergence of reperfusion therapy in form of thrombolysis and endovascular thrombectomy has led to the reversal of this trend in high-income countries. Low- and middle-income countries are yet to benefit maximally from these time-bound treatment options due to some limitations. We intend to highlight some of these in this report. We report an 80-year-old male patient with hypertension and firstdegree AV block admitted 3 hours after the onset of stroke with National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score of 13 and Medical Research Council (MRC) muscle power grade 3 in both the left upper and lower limb. Urgent non-contrast brain CT revealed no evidence of hemorrhage. Intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) was administered at a dose of 0.6 mg/kg 9 hours after symptom onset. He made significant improvement afterward and was discharged. The challenges encountered in his management include prehospital and intrahospital delay, and unavailability of tissue plasminogen activator. There is a need for an improved healthcare delivery system in order to reduce the morbidity associated with acute ischemic stroke.