Letter by Campbell and Short Regarding Article, “Type of Anesthesia and Differences in Clinical Outcome After Intra-Arterial Treatment for Ischemic Stroke”

We read the study by van den Berg et al with great interest.1 Their hypothesis was that conscious sedation confers better outcomes than general anesthesia by avoiding significant blood pressure changes or treatment delays. We were disappointed to find the results did not conform to the minimum standard required in trials assessing outcome differences between general anesthesia and conscious sedation groups. No information was provided on the blood pressures recorded in each group. There was a 21 minute difference in time to commencement of therapy, but no time to reperfusion and no analysis of whether this accounted …