Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31641895›Full record

ReviewThe ultrasound journal2019

Diagnostic value of transcranial ultrasonography for selecting subjects with large vessel occlusion: a systematic review.

Daria Antipova, Leila Eadie, Ashish Stephen Macaden, Philip Wilson

Open access · goldAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in The ultrasound journal, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
11citing papers in PubMed
1.9field-weighted citation impact, top 14% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

11 citing papers in PubMed, 30 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Observational
  3. Pre-Hospital Stroke Triage and Research: Challenges and Opportunities.Cerebrovascular diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Large Vessel Occlusion Stroke Detection in the Prehospital Environment.Current emergency and hospital medicine reports · 2021
    Article
  9. Article
  10. Article
  11. Transcranial Ultrasound in the Helicopter Emergency Medical Services-A Feasibility Study.Journal of neuroimaging : official journal of the American Society of Neuroimaging
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Daria AntipovaCentre for Rural Health, University of Aberdeen, Old Perth Road, Inverness, IV2 3JH, UK. daria.antipova@abdn.ac.uk.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0267-1903
Leila EadieCentre for Rural Health, University of Aberdeen, Old Perth Road, Inverness, IV2 3JH, UK.
Ashish Stephen MacadenDepartment of Stroke and Rehabilitation Medicine, Raigmore Hospital, NHS Highland, Inverness, IV2 3UJ, UK.
Philip WilsonCentre for Rural Health, University of Aberdeen, Old Perth Road, Inverness, IV2 3JH, UK.
University of Aberdeen · GBRaigmore Hospital · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

introductionA number of pre-hospital clinical assessment tools have been developed to triage subjects with acute stroke due to large vessel occlusion (LVO) to a specialised endovascular centre, but their false negative rates remain high leading to inappropriate and costly emergency transfers. Transcranial ultrasonography may represent a valuable pre-hospital tool for selecting patients with LVO who could benefit from rapid transfer to a dedicated centre.

methodsDiagnostic accuracy of transcranial ultrasonography in acute stroke was subjected to systematic review. Medline, Embase, PubMed, Scopus, and The Cochrane Library were searched. Published articles reporting diagnostic accuracy of transcranial ultrasonography in comparison to a reference imaging method were selected. Studies reporting estimates of diagnostic accuracy were included in the meta-analysis.

resultsTwenty-seven published articles were selected for the systematic review. Transcranial Doppler findings, such as absent or diminished blood flow signal in a major cerebral artery and asymmetry index ≥ 21% were shown to be suggestive of LVO. It demonstrated sensitivity ranging from 68 to 100% and specificity of 78-99% for detecting acute steno-occlusive lesions. Area under the receiver operating characteristics curve was 0.91. Transcranial ultrasonography can also detect haemorrhagic foci, however, its application is largely restricted by lesion location.

conclusionsTranscranial ultrasonography might potentially be used for the selection of subjects with acute LVO, to help streamline patient care and allow direct transfer to specialised endovascular centres. It can also assist in detecting haemorrhagic lesions in some cases, however, its applicability here is largely restricted. Additional research should optimize the scanning technique. Further work is required to demonstrate whether this diagnostic approach, possibly combined with clinical assessment, could be used at the pre-hospital stage to justify direct transfer to a regional thrombectomy centre in suitable cases.

Indexed as

Acute cerebral ischaemiaIntracerebral haemorrhageLarge vessel occlusionNeuroimagingStrokeTranscranial ultrasonography

Identifiers

PMID31641895
PMCPMC6805840
OpenAlexW2982047323

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.