Functional recovery continues beyond 3 months post‐basilar artery thrombectomy: A retrospective cohort study

INTRODUCTION: Untreated basilar artery occlusion (BAO) carries 70% mortality. Guidelines recommend thrombectomy with or without thrombolysis. AIM: We compared Modified Rankin Scores (mRS) at 3 and 12 months post thrombectomy to determine benefit of long‐term follow up. METHODS: Retrospective, single centre analysis of BAO thrombectomies between 2015 and 2019. Inclusion criteria were symptomatic BAO on CT angiography, absent early ischemic changes, premorbid independence and intervention within 24 h. All received stroke ward care. Results were analysed with simple statistics and binary logistic regression as appropriate. RESULTS: Of 82 patients: most were male (61%, 50/82) with median age 68 years (IQR 17 years) and median NIHSS 14 (IQR 15). Median door‐to‐puncture time was 42 min (IQR 72 min). Total deaths were 34.1% (28/82) at 3 months, and 37.8% (31/82) at 12 months. Of 51 patients alive at 12 months: 41% (21/51) had improved mRS, 16% (8/51) had worse mRS and 43% (22/51) had unchanged mRS, compared to 3 months. Improvements to mRS were: one point in 57.1% (14/21), two points in 28.9% (6/21) and three points in 4.8% (1/21). Nursing home admission was avoided in 11.8% (6/51) who improved from mRS4. Increased age was associated with decreased likelihood of reaching the primary outcome OR 0.87, 95% CI 0.76–0.99 (p value = 0.03). CONCLUSION: Over a quarter of patients improved beyond 3 months. Future studies should adopt long‐term follow up as primary outcome.