The growth rate of early DWI lesions is highly variable and associated with penumbral salvage and clinical outcomes following endovascular reperfusion.

Background: The degree of variability in the rate of early diffusion-weighted imaging expansion in acute stroke has not been well characterized.

Aim: We hypothesized that patients with slowly expanding diffusion-weighted imaging lesions would have more penumbral salvage and better clinical outcomes following endovascular reperfusion than patients with rapidly expanding diffusion-weighted imaging lesions.

Methods: In the first part of this substudy of DEFUSE 2, growth curves were constructed for patients with >90% reperfusion and <10% reperfusion.