Algorithm Development Through AI for the Triage of Stroke Patients in the Ambulance With EEG

Endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) enormously improves the prognosis of patients with large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke, but its effect is highly time-dependent. Direct presentation of patients with an LVO stroke to an EVT-capable hospital reduces onset-to-treatment time by 40-115 minutes and thereby improves clinical outcome. Electroencephalography (EEG) may be a suitable prehospital stroke triage instrument for identifying LVO stroke, as differences have been found between EEG recordings of patients with an LVO stroke and those of suspected acute ischemic stroke patients with a smaller or no vessel occlusion. The investigators expect EEG can be performed in less than five minutes in the prehospital setting using a dry electrode EEG cap. An automatic LVO-detection algorithm will be the key to reliable, simple and fast interpretation of EEG recordings by ambulance paramedics. The primary objective of this study is to develop one or more novel AI-based algorithms (the AI-STROKE algorithms) with optimal diagnostic accuracy for identification of LVO stroke in patients with a suspected acute ischemic stroke in the prehospital setting, based on ambulant EEG data.