Efficacy of remote ischemic conditioning in acute ischemic stroke patients receiving thrombolysis and thrombectomy: a meta-analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Remote ischemic conditioning is a non-invasive, easy-to-administer procedure providing brief, reversible episodes of ischemia conferring global protection to remote tissue or organs. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis on the available studies on patients receiving thrombolysis and thrombectomy. Methods: PubMed, Cochrane, Embase, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched for articles from inception to 10 September 2023. Data were analyzed using Cochrane RevMan Web. Odds ratio (OR), mean difference (MD), and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were combined via fixed-effect analysis. Results: Seven randomized controlled trials were included with a total of 927 patients. Remote ischemic conditioning could reduce the recurrence of ischemic stroke at endpoints (OR 0.84, [0.30, 2.29]) and improve the clinical outcome (modified Rankin Scale 0-2) at 90 days (OR 0.96 [0.67, 1.36]) but the results are not significantly different from the control group. Conclusions: Remote ischemic conditioning shows promise in reducing ischemic stroke recurrence and improving patients’ prognosis at 90 days.