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No

Peter Sandercock, MA, DM, FRCPE
From the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Arch Neurol. 1999;56:1160-1162.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

THERE IS NO evidence to support the routine use of intravenous (IV) heparin in the treatment of any type of patient with acute ischemic stroke. The first randomized trial, undertaken by the Cerebral Embolism Study Group, stopped prematurely when there was a nonsignificant trend in favor of treatment, after only 45 (of a planned 140) patients with presumed cardioembolic stroke had been randomized.¹ Three years later, a randomized trial in 225 patients showed that there was no evidence of benefit from IV heparin in preventing stroke progression.² A quantitative systematic review of the data from these 2 trials also did not provide any evidence of net benefit.³

Despite the lack of evidence,⁴ IV heparin has—ever since heparin became available—been used extensively (in some centers, at least) in patients with acute stroke for a variety of reasons: to prevent early recurrence in suspected cardioembolic stroke; to . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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