Stroke Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Stroke, including details on treatment, recovery, rehabilitation, signs, symptoms.

Endovascular management of acute ischemic stroke: advances in patient and treatment selection.

Gupta R, Jovin TG

Michigan State University, Department of Neurology, Division of Cerebrovascular Diseases, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. rishi.gupta@ht.msu.edu

Selection of patients for acute-stroke therapy has traditionally been based on rigid time criteria in clinical trials. Recent advances in radiographic imaging have allowed clinicians to estimate brain physiology and thus utilize radiographic parameters to select patients for acute-stroke therapies. Both a better understanding and the quantification methods of salvageable tissue versus irreversibly injured tissue can help guide clinicians to which treatment modality to utilize. The evolution of endovascular techniques to treat acute stroke has resulted in treatment modalities that include mechanical and chemical methods to revascularize occluded cerebral arteries. Prior technical limitations to accessing distal-cerebral arteries have been partially overcome by modifications in technology. Patient and treatment-modality selection can help reduce hemorrhagic complication rates and also potentially increase revascularization rates, which may translate into improved clinical outcomes. We review the recent advances in radiographic imaging that have advanced patient selection in treating acute ischemic stroke and also consider current endovascular treatment options that are available to interventionalists performing these procedures.

Published 8 February 2007 in Expert Rev Neurother, 7(2): 143-53.
Full-text of this article is available online (may require subscription).

© 2004-2008 Stroke Research Today. All Rights Reserved.