Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Background
Tirofiban is a GP IIb/IIIa inhibitor, an anti-platelet drug that is used after ischemic episodes like stroke or acute coronary syndromes. We are assessing the safety and efficacy of the drug in patients who have suffered an acute ischemic stroke.
Methods
A comprehensive search of PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov from inception to April 2024 yielded randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing Tirofiban and control in patients with acute ischemic stroke. We assessed the risk of bias using the revised Cochrane “Risk of bias” tool for randomized trials (RoB 2.0). We analyzed the outcomes using RevMan 5.4, with risk ratio (RR) as the effect measure.
Results
A total of eight RCTs with 3678 patients were included in our meta-analysis. According to our meta-analysis, the Tirofiban group was associated with a statistically significant increase in the patients showing functional independence at 90 days, measured by patients with Modified Rankin Score (mRS) of 0-2 (RR 1.14; CI = 1.05-1.25; I² = 38%). We found no difference between the two groups regarding excellent outcome (mRS score 0-1) at 90 days (RR 1.15; CI = 0.99-1.33; I² = 51%) and mortality (RR 0.86; CI = 0.50-1.46; I² = 56%). The tirofiban group did not increase the incidence of both intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) (RR 1.23; CI = 1.04-1.46; I² = 0%) and symptomatic ICH (RR 1.41; CI = 0.93-2.14; I² = 0%).
Conclusion
According to our analysis of acute ischemic stroke patients, Tirofiban increased the number of patients with functional independence with no increase in adverse events as compared to the control group. Large-scale RCTs are needed to better ascertain the role of Tirofiban in acute ischemic stroke.