The investigators defined the "Lazarus phenomenon" as a decrease in the National Institutes of Health stroke scale (NIHSS) score by at least 50% within the first 24 hours after treatment.
Lazarus phenomenon patients improved a median of 10 points during the first 24 hours.
Although intra-arterial treatment has a longer time window than the 0- to 3-hour standard for intravenous treatment with clot-busting drugs, time to treatment was one of three significant factors favoring the Lazarus phenomenon in a multivariate analysis.