text_1: Landmark study may impact standard stroke treatment guidelines
text_2: This news release from Emory University describes  findings of a randomized clinical trial that showed  positive outcomes among almost half of stroke patients whose brain blood clots were removed well outside the time frame of six hours currently recommended by stroke experts. The release properly discloses that the study was funded by a company that makes the clot removing device and quotes investigators from one of the participant investigators not at Emory. The release could have been stronger had it disclosed details about the patients (such as age, and their co-occurring conditions, race, gender); the size of the population of stroke victims in the U.S. likely to benefit from “late” clot removal; and limitations of the study (e.g. follow up was for 90 days, not long term). Some details on which stroke victims are considered eligible for clot removal within six to 24 hours and the costs of the clot removal procedure itself would have been helpful. Disability from stroke is a major cause of suffering and high health care costs in the United States and elsewhere, and despite advances in technology (clot removal devices) and clot-busting drugs, its prevention has long depended on how fast a stroke patient can make it to a hospital for treatment. The six-hour window long thought to be the maximum time in which clot removal technologies could save brains and lives has meant that individuals unlucky enough to have a stroke in remote locations, or in bad weather, for example, stood little chance of enough recovery to lead independent lives. Thus, the results of rigorous studies like the one described in the release — it was stopped early because of the positive outcomes — are exceptionally newsworthy, and important for the public to know about.