Prehospital and in-hospital delays in acute stroke care

Current guidelines emphasize the need for early stroke care. However, significant delays occur during both the prehospital and in-hospital phases of care, making many patients ineligible for stroke therapies. The purpose of this study was to systematically review and summarize the existing scientific literature reporting prehospital and in-hospital stroke delay times in order to assist future delivery of effective interventions to reduce delay time and to raise several key issues which future studies should consider. A comprehensive search was performed to find all published journal articles which reported on the prehospital or in-hospital delay time for stroke, including intervention studies. Since 1981, at least 48 unique reports of prehospital delay time for patients with stroke, transient ischemic attack, or stroke-like symptoms were published from 17 different countries. In the majority of studies which reported median delay times, the median time from symptom onset to arrival in the emergency department was between 3 and 6 h. The in-hospital times from emergency department arrival to being seen by an emergency department physician, initiation and interpretation of a computed tomography (CT) scan, and being seen by a neurologist were consistently longer than recommended. However, prehospital delay comprised the majority of time from symptom onset to potential treatment. Definitions and methodologies differed across studies, making direct comparisons difficult. This review suggests that the majority of stroke patients are unlikely to arrive at the emergency department and receive a diagnostic evaluation in under 3 h. Further studies of stroke delay and corresponding interventions are needed, with careful attention to definitions and methodologies.