By Dr Linxin Li, Wolfson Centre for Prevention of Stroke and Dementia, Oxford University, UK
I visited the E-Poster gallery first thing this morning and was almost overwhelmed by the width and depth of excellent science there! Although we were not able to discuss face-to-face this time, many authors have indicated they are available either through email or in the chat room so I hope you do get into contact.
Given the apparent increase, “young stroke” captures a lot of attention this year. Kivela et al. from Finland used a unique population-based birth cohort and studied PREGNANCY AND BIRTH COMPLICATIONS IN ASSOCIATION WITH EARLY ONSET STROKE IN THE OFFSPRING DASH THE NORTHERN FINLAND BIRTH COHORT 1966 STUDY. They showed that bleeding and low weight gain during pregnancy were associated with increased stroke risk in offspring, highlighting that pregnancy complications may have long-lasting influence on stroke risk.
Small vessel disease remains an area of growing interest. Jung et al. from Korea performed a very elegant study to look at INDIVIDUAL RISK DETERMINATION WITH PATHOPHYSIOLOGICAL TYPING OF CEREBRAL WHITE MATTER SIGNAL ABNORMALITIES and showed that white matter hyperintensities can be classified into three distinct phenotypes: Type I – multiple, small lower-contrast lesions predominantly in the deep white matter; Type II – large, patch lesions in the periventricular white matter and type III – higher-contrast lesions mostly restricted to the juxtaventricular white matter. Their study offers a new tool to study the associations of white matter hyperintensities and proposed underlying pathophysiology.
Another interesting study that caught my eye was presented by Khan et al from Japan. INCREASE IN AMBIENT TEMPERATURE PARAMETERS IS ASSOCIATED WITH LOWER INCIDENCE OF STROKE IN A JAPANESE POPULATION: TAKASHIMA STROKE REGISTRY, JAPAN, 1988-2010. The authors found that an increase in temperature was associated with lower risk of any stroke, especially for individuals at older ages. The signal seems to be particularly prominent for intracerebral haemorrhage and for subarachnoid haemorrhage.
In addition to studies presenting their results, there are also exciting posters detailing the design of several ongoing trials. I very much look forward to hearing the diagnostic yield of ECG-gated cardio-aortic CTA in the acute phase of ischaemic stroke from the MIND THE HEART trial and if routine monitoring also helps to detect atrial fibrillation in patients with otherwise known aetiology from the STROKE AF trial.
I hope I have given you a flavour of the posters we have. The gallery is still open so please grab a drink and enjoy!
