New research suggests that it may be safe to give the clot-busting drug tPA to people who wake up with stroke symptoms, even though there is a short time window in which to use the treatment and doctors have no idea when these patients first started experiencing their stroke.
The powerful medication can save lives and stave off lasting disability after a stroke, but experts believe it needs to be given within 4.5 hours of the start of symptoms. Almost 25 percent of people who have strokes have them while they are asleep, the study authors noted, and doctors typically err on the side of caution, assume the stroke happened when the patient first went to bed and do not treat with tPA....
