Published Paper Details:

AIM: To study the efficacy of Alteplase versus Tenecteplase and to assess the quality of life in patients with acute ischemic stroke. METHODS: A hospital based prospective observational study was done at a tertiary care hospital located in Thiruvananthapuram over a period of 6 months. The efficacy of Alteplase and Tenecteplase is compared and the quality of life in these patients is assessed . There are two groups in the study. One group of patients treated with Alteplase and the other group with Tenecteplase. The efficacy was compared by the use of National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). The quality of life of the patients was evaluated before and after the treatment by using Stroke specific quality of life (SS-QOL) to detect whether the QOL has improved.The anxiety and depression in patient is also being assessed using Hospital anxiety and depression scale(HADS). The cost effectiveness of both drugs is also being analysed. RESULTS: The treatment with Tenecteplase gives better efficacy than that of Alteplase. At the end of the treatment, 25.3% improvement was seen in patients with treatment of Tenecteplase while Alteplase shows only 10% . The QOL shows 86% improvement in patients treated with Tenecteplase and 64% was observed in patients taking Alteplase. The HADS shows 36% improvement in patients treated with Tenecteplase while 38% in Alteplase. CONCLUSION: The result shows that the treatment with the Tenecteplase gives better efficacy and also shows superiority in upgrading the quality of life. Even though the treatment outcome of Alteplase was not superior to the outcome of Tenecteplase, only 15.3% of difference was observed between the outcomes of two groups.