Author Response: IV Thrombolysis vs Early Dual Antiplatelet Therapy in Patients With Mild Noncardioembolic Ischemic Stroke

We thank Pensato et al. for their valuable comments on our article.1 Agreed, the definition of early neurologic deterioration and the use of modified Rankin Scale might not be optimally precise for this highly selected stroke population. However, it is not solely the registry structure that did not allow us to use more granular end points, we rather purposely adhered to standard clinical end points to secure comparability. Dual antiplatelet therapy preference in older patients with higher comorbidities and lower NIH Stroke Scale scores additionally mirrors the presence of a clear selection bias, unavoidable with this type of study.