Trends in treatment and outcome of stroke patients in Finland from 1999 to 2007. PERFECT Stroke, a nationwide register study.

Introduction: This article in this supplement issue on the Performance, Effectiveness, and Costs of Treatment episodes (PERFECT) project describes trends in Finnish stroke treatment and outcome.

Material And Methods: The PERFECT Stroke study uses multiple national registry linkages at individual patient level to produce a national stroke database with comprehensive follow-up of all hospital-treated stroke patients in Finland.

Results: There were 94,316 incident stroke patients treated in Finnish hospitals from 1999 to 2007.

Direct costs of patients with stroke can be continuously monitored on a national level: performance, effectiveness, and Costs of Treatment episodes in Stroke (PERFECT Stroke) Database in Finland.

Background And Purpose: Treatment of stroke consumes a significant portion of all healthcare expenditure. We developed a system for monitoring costs from individual patient data on a national level in Finland.

Methods: Multiple national administrative registers were linked to gain episode-of-care data on all hospital-treated patients with incident stroke over the years 1999 to 2007 (n = 94,316).

Stroke monitoring on a national level: PERFECT Stroke, a comprehensive, registry-linkage stroke database in Finland.

Background And Purpose: Stroke databases are established to systematically evaluate both the treatment and outcome of stroke patients and the structure and processes of stroke services. Comprehensive data collection on this common disease is resource-intensive, and national stroke databases often include only patients from selected hospitals. Here we describe an alternative national stroke database.

Effectiveness of primary and comprehensive stroke centers: PERFECT stroke: a nationwide observational study from Finland.

Background And Purpose: Previous studies show better outcomes for patients with stroke receiving care in stroke units, but many different stroke unit criteria have been published. In this study, we explored whether stroke centers fulfilling standardized Brain Attack Coalition criteria produce better patient outcomes than hospitals without stroke centers.

Methods: We did an observational register-linkage study of all patients with ischemic stroke treated in Finland between 1999 and 2006.

Decreased neck muscle strength is highly associated with pain in cervical dystonia patients treated with botulinum toxin injections.

Objectives: To compare the isometric neck muscle strength of cervical dystonia patients treated with botulinum toxin injections with that of healthy control subjects and to evaluate the association between neck strength, neck pain, and disability in these patients.

Design: Clinical cross-sectional study.

Setting: Outpatient rehabilitation and neurology clinics in a Finnish hospital.

Assessment of cerebral hemodynamics and oxygen extraction using dynamic susceptibility contrast and spin echo blood oxygenation level-dependent magnetic resonance imaging: applications to carotid stenosis patients.

Blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been recently used to quantify cerebral blood volume (CBV) and oxygen extraction ratio (OER). In the present study, we have exploited the intravascular BOLD model to assess gray matter (GM) OER at hemispheric level using parenchymal T(2) and CBV data at 1.5 T, obtained by single spin echo and dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) perfusion MRI, respectively.