Half of all patients with suspected stroke are not reaching hospital in less than six hours—the cut-off time for receiving the possible benefit of thrombolysis—report Harraf and colleagues (p 17). Studying the early management of 739 patients with acute stroke in 22 hospitals, they show that the median delay between onset of symptoms and arrival at hospital was two hours for patients using the emergency services and seven hours for those referred by their GP. The authors say that patients and general practitioners should use emergency services to reduce delays in getting patients to hospital, thereby increasing the number of patients eligible for therapies.
