We identified and reviewed all cases with a diagnosis other than ischemic stroke in our large-scale single-center stroke thrombolysis registry. We compared these stroke mimics with patients with neuroimaging-negative and neuroimaging-positive ischemic stroke results.
Among 985 consecutive intravenous thrombolysis-treated patients, we found 14 stroke mimics (1.4 % ; 95 % confidence interval 0.8 % to 2.4 % ), 694 (70.5 % ) patients with neuroimaging-positive ischemic stroke results, and 275 (27.9 % ) patients with neuroimaging-negative ischemic stroke results. Stroke mimics were younger than patients with neuroimaging-negative or -positive ischemic stroke results. Compared with patients with neuroimaging-positive ischemic stroke results, stroke mimics had less severe symptoms at baseline and better 3-month outcome. No differences appeared in medical history or clinical features between stroke mimics and patients with neuroimaging-negative ischemic stroke results. None of the stroke mimics developed symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage compared with 63 (9.1 % ) among patients with neuroimaging-positive ischemic stroke results and 6 (2.2 % ) among patients with neuroimaging-negative ischemic stroke results.
Stroke mimics were infrequent among intravenous thrombolysis-treated stroke patients in this cohort, and their treatment did not lead to harmful complications.