The Safety and Efficacy of Endovascular Treatment for Patients With ASPECTS<6 in Anterior Circulation Stroke: A Meta-Analysis and Subgroup Analysis by Imaging Techniques

Abstract Background Endovascular treatment (EVT) is merely recommended as class of recommendation IIb for patients with ASPECTS Methods A systematic search of PubMed, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library and other additional sources was performed for studies published with no publication period. Our study was conducted corresponding to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRIMA) guidelines. The analysis was performed using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (CMA) 2.0. Results Five studies reporting data from 844 participants were included in our analysis according to the inclusion criteria. Consequently, EVT was associated with statistically significant higher functional independence compared with MT (OR 5.401, 95% CI 3.227–9.041). Whereas EVT was found to be related to lower mortality compared with MT based on eligible data (OR 0.461, 95% CI 0.329–0.647). No significant difference was identified in sICH between EVT and MT (OR 1.075, 95% CI 0.452–2.558). Conclusion According to the results of our study, we suggested that EVT is a preferred therapy in ACS patients with ASPECTS