Letter regarding ‘Radial first or patient first : a case series and meta-analysis of transradial (TRA) versus transfemoral (TFA) access for acute ischemic stroke intervention’

• Published in: Journal of neurointerventional surgery Vol. 13; no. 8; p. e16
• Main Authors: Sheriff, Faheem G, Rodriguez, Gustavo J, Gupta, Vikas, Maud, Alberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London BMJ Publishing Group LTD 01.08.2021
• Subjects: Catheters; Intervention; Meta-analysis; Patients; Stroke
• ISSN: 1759-8478; 1759-8486
• DOI: 10.1136/neurintsurg-2021-017655

[...]in the related field of percutaneous intervention for ST-elevation myocardial infarction, operators needed between 30 and 50 interventions before they were familiar with the method.3 The same argument holds for the systematic review component of the manuscript, involving 10 studies.1 The authors found that the rate of successful recanalization in the TRA group varied from 57.1% to 95.6% with a heterogeneity of 67.5% (p=0.001), which might indicate a significant variation in the level of technical proficiency among operators. [...]in the subgroup analysis of the four studies that directly compared TFA and TRA, no significant difference in successful reperfusion or first pass effect was found between TRA and TFA groups. [...]a number of limitations of TRA pointed out by the authors might be simply a function of technological progress.