Washington, April 19 (IANS): Providing a ray of hope for heart patients, a new study has found that the removal of the clot causing a severe stroke, in combination with the standard medication, improves the restoration of blood flow to the brain and may result in better long-term outcomes.

"These findings are a game-changer for how we should treat certain types of stroke," said Demetrius Lopes from the Rush University's medical centre and co-author of the study.

The standard treatment for ischemic stroke within the first three to four and a half hours of symptoms is intravenous tissue plasminogen activator (IV tPA), a medication which dissolves the clot.

But in around 20 percent of cases in which one of the major arteries is blocked, IV tPA alone may not be sufficient to dissolve the clot.

The study randomly divided patients with severe ischemic strokes into two groups, one receiving IV tPA alone, and the other receiving combination therapy of IV tPA and thrombectomy.

The patients who received IV tPA plus thrombectomy showed reduced disability across the entire range of the measurement.

They had better cerebral blood flow rates.

The study appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.