A study by the University of Michigan Stroke Program was conducted in Corpus Christi, Texas, an area with no major university hospitals that researchers say made it an ideal "real world" setting.
The study included 2,347 patients with ischemic (clot-based) strokes who reported to hospitals in the study area between January 2000 and June 2005. The average age was 71 years, and just over half were women.
The study - which found that 69 percent of stroke victims don't reach the hospital in the first three hours after their stroke symptoms begin. Only 44 percent of patients experiencing full-blown clot-based strokes got to the hospital within six hours of the start of their symptoms. Thirty-six percent didn't get there until more than 12 hours had passed.
Every minute spent without treatment means more brain cells die.
"Efforts to speed up patients' arrival at the hospital are absolutely crucial. We have very effective treatments, we just need to get patients to the hospital as fast as possible," said Lewis Morgenstern, M.D., senior author of the study.
