ESOC 2018 – Poster Walk with Dr. Reale the Reprise

Attending ESOC conference sessions and facing the incredible amount of research activities conducted all around the world should make us remember that medical profession requires both brain and hearth. Stroke physicians do know that this connection is very important. In fact, cardioembolic stroke is frequent and linked to poor outcomes, if compared with other etiology subtypes. This is why a large section of posters is addressed to this evergreen topic.

Atrial fibrillation is the most important pathology causing cardioembolic stroke and, probably, cryptogenic stroke. Great efforts are spent to detect and predict this condition. If you want to know something more about this topic, do not miss ELECTROCARDIOGRAPHIC PREDICTORS OF ATRIAL FIBRILLATION IN CRYPTOGENIC STROKE (Acampa et al), PREDICTING ATRIAL FIBRILLATION IN ISCHAEMIC STROKE: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW (Maylin et al) and CONTINUOUS NON-INVASIVE 4-WEEK ECG MONITORING REVEALS ATRIAL FIBRILLATION IN PATIENTS WITH RECENT EMBOLIC STROKE OF UNDETERMINED SOURCE (Lumikari et al). Detecting atrial fibrillation implies a crucial therapeutic shift from antiplatelets drugs to anticoagulants, but sometimes things go wrong, as SPONTANEOUS INTRACEREBRAL HEMORRHAGE IN ANTICOAGULATED PATIENTS: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NON-VITAMIN ANTAGONIST ORAL ANTICOAGULANTS (NOACS) AND VITAMIN K ANTAGONISTS (AVK) (Rodríguez-Yáñez et al) teaches us. To be careful in assessing intracranial bleeding risk of patients taking anticoagulants it is important, especially when microbleeds are detected in SWI MRI sequences: in this view, take a look at PREVALENCE AND IMPLICATIONS OF CEREBRAL MICROBLEEDS IN PATIENTS WITH ATIRAL FIBRILLATION: ASSOCIATED RISK FACTORS AND PREDICTIVE MODEL (Escudero-Martínez et al). Talking about cardioembolic strokes, ACCURACY OF THE ROPE SCORE TO EVALUATE THE SIZE OF A FORAMEN OVAL PATENT AS EVALUATED BY TRANSCRANIAL DOPPLER WITH BUBBLE STUDY (Vargas et al) is an interesting attempt to find correlations between the RoPE score and the PFO size.

Transcranial doppler is at the center of an elegant poster entitled PERSISTENTLY ELEVATED MICROVASCULAR RESISTANCE POST-RECANALIZATION ON TRANSCRANIAL DOPPLER: A CLINICAL MARKER OF NO-REFLOW PHENOMENON? (Ng et al). Neuroimaging is crucial in stroke work-up and all stroke clinicians have a soft spot for brain MRI, but sometimes we should rely more on our brain and less on our hearth. It is the case of DWI-negative ischemic strokes (about 8%, especially for posterior circulation) and DIFFUSION WEIGHTED IMAGING NEGATIVE STROKE SYNDROMES (Pektezel et al) is a very interesting poster. As noteworthy as the previous ones, the Women and stroke session reminds us that women are underrepresented in stroke trials although they tend to have different risk factors and outcomes than men, as EXPLORING THE SEX DIFFERENCES IN ATRIAL FIBRILLATION AND STROKE IN A COHORT OF 1178 PATIENTS WITH 10 YEAR FOLLOW UP (Christensen and Christensen) and SPECIFIC RISK FACTORS, CLINICAL FEATURES AND OUTCOME IN YOUNG WOMEN WITH ISCHEMIC STROKE (Arsovska) posters tell us; considerations like these have led to the creation of Women Initiative for Stroke in Europe (WISE) ESO group, that tries to bridge the gap in women’s stroke care throughout Europe.