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Intravenous (IV) thrombolytic therapy for acute ischemic stroke (IS) is not contraindicated in patients suffering from chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to  a new study. 

Researchers analyzed data from 44,410 patients with IS who received IV tissue-type  plasminogen activator (tPA). They were interested in assessing the risk of bleeding complications in those with CKD. 

Researchers found that 34 percent of the patients receiving IV thrombolytic therapy for IS had CKD, according to the press release. 

They also noted that the presence of CKD, compared with absence of CKD was not associated with increased risk of symptomatic inter cranial hemorrhage.  Further they found that patients with CKD, compared with those with normal renal function, were more likely to die in the hospital and to have an unfavorable functional status of discharge. 

"These results suggest that poor outcomes attributable to CKD may be because of other adverse conditions linked to CKD, and so presence of CKD alone should not necessarily be a contraindication to administration of IV tPA to eligible patients with ischemic stroke, particularly from a hemorrhagic risk standpoint," the authors wrote in the study.

The study was published in the Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.