Intravenous thrombolysis in stroke patients of > or = 80 versus < 80 years of age--a systematic review across cohort studies.

elderly stroke patients were excluded or underrepresented in the randomised controlled trials of intravenous thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) applied within 3 h. Cohort studies comparing intravenous rtPA in stroke patients of >/=80 versus <80 years of age were limited by small sample sizes and yielded conflicting results. Thus, we performed a systematic review across all such studies.