Evaluation of Door-to-Needle Times Between Alteplase and Tenecteplase for Acute Ischemic Stroke at Two Academic Medical Centers.

Background: Off-label tenecteplase use for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) has increased due to ease of administration and comparable efficacy and safety to alteplase.

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate time to thrombolysis before and after transition from alteplase to tenecteplase for treatment of AIS at 2 institutions.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included adult patients receiving thrombolysis for AIS before and after transition from alteplase to tenecteplase at 2 academic medical centers from January 1, 2020 to January 31, 2024. The primary endpoint was door-to-needle (DTN) time, defined as minutes from hospital arrival to thrombolysis administration. Notable secondary endpoints included time from last known well (LKW) to thrombolysis, time from brain imaging to thrombolysis, hospital length of stay (LOS), and incidence of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH).

Results: A total of 328 patients (168 tenecteplase and 160 alteplase) were included. Patients were 51.5% female with a median (interquartile range [IQR]) age of 70 [58-80] years and initial National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score of 8 [5-14]. There was no statistically significant difference in DTN time (60 vs 56 minutes), time from LKW to thrombolysis (134 vs 147.5 minutes), or time from brain imaging to thrombolysis (32 vs 31 minutes) between tenecteplase and alteplase. Hospital LOS (5.7 vs 4.9 days) and the rates of sICH (3% vs 3.8%) were similar between groups.

Conclusion and relevance: Tenecteplase and alteplase had comparable DTN times for treatment of AIS and similar safety endpoints. Further studies are warranted to identify opportunities to streamline DTN times with tenecteplase.