Evidence Based Medicine: Acute administration of rt-PA for acute stroke in Pakistani patients — what does the available evidence teach us?

The national institute of neurological disorders and stroke rt-pa stroke study-ninds rt-pa, european cooperative acute stroke study ecass iii, and japanese alteplase clinical trial j-act. why are these studies important and noteworthy? strokes are an important public health problem; about two thirds of stroke mortality will now be borne by the developing world. up until late 80's no treatment was available to improve the deficits once stroke had occurred. the ninds trial was the first randomized controlled trial undertaken to evaluate the efficacy of this agent.