Acute Ischemic Stroke After Recombinant Tissue Plasminogen Activator for Acute Myocardial Infarction

Introduction/Background: Occurrence of a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) after thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction (MI) is an uncommon but recognized clinical problem [1]. Although, intracranial hemorrhage is the primary neurological complication noted after thrombolytic therapy [2, 3], ischemic CVA is an infrequent and devastating complication that is reported to occur after 48 hours in this population [4, 5]. Mortality is very high if a CVA complicates an acute MI and this is most apparent during the first few months after infarction (up to 60% at one year) [1, 5]. We describe a patient who had an acute ischemic CVA within 1 hour of receiving thrombolytic therapy for acute myocardial infarction who survived till discharge from hospital.