MRI-based screening determines which severe stroke patients should receive endovascular treatment

A Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)-developed system for determining which patients with severe strokes are most likely to benefit from catheter-based systems for blood clot removal led to a greater percentage of screened patients receiving treatment and to outcomes similar to recent studies that found significant treatment benefits. The research team reports how the precision of their classification system, which combines diffusion MRI with key clinical characteristics, more than doubled the percentage of screened patients who were assigned to and probably benefited from treatment.