PLAT and Stroke: A later study utilized data from four major stroke clinical studies with tPA: ECASS III, Alteplase Thrombolysis for Acute Noninterventional Therapy in Ischemic Stroke (ATLANTIS) Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Echoplanar Imaging Thrombolytic Evaluation Trial (EPITHET) and determined that tPA yielded beneficial outcomes when given up to 4.5 h but not beyond, and the earlier patients are treated, the better the outcome (Lees et al., 2010).