Safety and efficacy of arterial injection of tirofiban in treating ischemic stroke beyond the window period

Purpose: To investigate the efficacy of intraarterial administration of tirofiban for stroke treatment beyond the conventional window period and evaluate its impact on prognosis.Methods: A retrospective study was conducted on ninety (90) acute ischemic stroke patients admitted to The First Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, Haikou, China from July 2021 to October 2022. The patients were divided into Tirofiban group (50) and non-Tirofiban group (40) based on whether the patients received arterial clopidogrel. National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), modified Rankin Scale (mRS) and Barthel index (BI) scores were used to evaluate adverse drug reactions and its impact on prognosis for patients with symptoms onset within 6 - 24 h.Results: No significant differences were observed between the groups in terms of age, gender, medical history, personal history, blood indicators and neurologic function scores (p > 0.05). The median NIHSS score on admission and after 24 h of treatment was 4 in both groups and 3 in both groups after 72 h of treatment. However, after 7 days of treatment, the median NIHSS score was lower in Tirofiban group (2.0) than in non-Tirofiban group (2.5; p > 0.05). Tirofiban group demonstrated higher rates of effective treatment and good prognosis compared to non-Tirofiban group. Importantly, there was no significant difference in the occurrence of adverse reactions between the two groups (p > 0.05).Conclusion: Tirofiban, given via the arteries, improves neurological functions following hyper-acute stroke even beyond the window period and without adverse reactions. It is a safe and effective antiplatelet drug for late-life treatment. For future studies, it will be necessary to broaden the treatment scope and gather more robust and reliable data in order to enhance data quality.