A COMPARISON OF ASSESSMENT, DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT OF PATIENTS WITH CEREBRAL VENOUS THROMBOSIS BEFORE AND AFTER INTRODUCTION OF A NEW POLICY AND GUIDELINE ACROSS GREATER MANCHESTER

Background From June 2014, regional guidelines to transfer within 24 hours all radiologically confirmed cases of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) were implemented across Greater Manchester. This service review assesses the impact on assessment, diagnosis and treatment. Methods We prospectively recorded all CVT cases transferred into our unit between June 1st and November 30th 2014 (14 patients), and retrospectively reviewed the casenotes of patients admitted in 2012, 2013 and early 2014 (13 patients). Results Mean number of days from diagnosis to transfer after guideline introduction was 0.4. More patients underwent fundoscopy (86% vs 77%), visual acuity (50% vs 27%), visual field (79% vs 69%) and otoscopy (29% vs 8%). Patients admitted to SRFT previously had shorter symptom to diagnosis, imaging, transfer, and treatment times. Conclusions After guideline introduction we found a high level of compliance with time to transfer, with improvements in several aspects of clinical assessments. We expect that patients previously admitted to our centre were more unwell or already admitted for other reasons (e.g. neurosurgical) and therefore time from symptoms to diagnosis appears longer. We aim to extend the current evaluation to all patients in the region who weren9t transferred to our centre to allow a more valid comparison.