Our experience with thrombolytic therapy -- preliminary report.

Stroke is a rapidly developing clinical disturbance of focal or global cerebral function, lasting for more than 1 hour. It is an acute form of symptoms of brain function disorder, with no apparent cause other than vascular origin. It is the final phase of arterial disease, the main cause of disability, and the second leading cause of death.

Functional outcome after thrombolytic therapy.

In this paper, we report our experience from a prospective study in 40 ischemic stroke patients admitted during the last two years at University Department of Neurology Stroke Unit, Banja Luka Clinical Center, in order to assess the safety and efficacy of thrombolytic therapy, the impact of age, sex and risk factors, and functional outcome at 6 months of intravenous tissue plasminogen activator treatment. According to the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale, there were 5 mild, 22 moderate and 13 severe stroke cases in the study group. The outcome measures at 6 months of thrombolytic treatment were taken in 38 (100%) patients, yielding a Functional Independent Measure score > or=90 (good clinical outcome) in 21 (52.