Let`s Toast to That Post(er)!
By Dr. Luca Mengozzi LMENGOZZI01@GMAIL.COM
Stroke treatment is pure team work and a journey but, unlike many journeys, physicians wish for this one to be the quickest and less challenging as possible. However, what if such journey did not start in a hospital at all?
Acute Stroke Treatment by a Physician-based Emergency Services Team in a MOBILE STROKE UNIT (Karianne Larsen et al) could be the future of treatment and as this poster demonstrates, bringing stroke care directly to patients’ homes not only can be time-saving but safe and effective as well.
Now, what if first responders could tell us right away from an ambulance where a Large Vessel Occlusion is located? This is precisely what the poster EEG CONTROLLED TRIAGE IN THE AMBULANCE FOR ACUTE ISCHEMIC STROKE TRIAL, ELECTRA-STROKE (van Meenen et al) is trying to achieve and we wish them best of luck for their ambulance pilot expected to start July 2019.
Don’t we all hate a fake, a forgery, a pretender…well in case of strokes we need to be absolutely sure what we are really dealing with. PURINES FOR RAPID IDENTIFICATION OF STROKE MIMICS (PRISM): A DIAGNOSTIC ACCURACY STUDY (Shaw et al) is trying to fight this battle and detect the impostors.
Speaking of impostors, what if we stepped even deeper into it and used MICRORNA AS DIAGNOSTIC BIOMARKERS TO DIFFERENTIATE ACUTE ISCHEMIC STROKE FROM INTRACEREBRAL HAEMORRHAGE AND STROKE MIMICS, AN OBSERVATIONAL MULTICENTER STUDY (Nguyen et al).
Not-exactly-the-youngest medications can still be useful in more recent treatment protocols, but despite their old, old and let me repeat OLD AGE, do we really know everything we need?
MR CLEAN-MED. THE EFFECT OF PERIPROCEDURAL MEDICATION IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING INTRA-ARTERIAL TREATMENT FOR ACUTE ISCHEMIC STROKE: ACETYLSALICYLIC ACID, HEPARIN, BOTH OR NEITHER (van de Graaf et al). Will we find our answers here?
Speaking of protocols, if some physicians are not satisfied with the results of current thrombolysis… and let’s be honest not everyone is happy with it, wouldn’t we want to seek possibly better options?
A PHASE III, PROSPECTIVE, DOUBLE-BLIND, RANDOMIZED, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED TRIAL TO ACCESS THE EFFICACY AND SAFETY OF TENECTEPLASE IN IMAGING-ELIGIBLE, LATE-WINDOW PATIENTS WITH ACUTE ISCHEMIC STROKE, TIMELESS (Albers et al) is giving us hopes for better results, whereas ALTEPLASE-TENECTEPLASE TRIAL EVALUATION FOR STROKE THROMBOLYSIS, ATTEST 2 (Murray et al) is comparing the not-so-younger with the newer.
Last but not least, our stroke treatment journey can end with a question of timing…AGAIN? Indeed, time is brain, but also OPTIMAL TIMING OF ANTICOAGULATION AFTER ISCHAEMIC STROKE, OPTIMAS (Best et al) can be brain.
If you haven’t done it yet, it’s high time you downloaded the application “Horizon 2020 (H2020)” directly onto your mobile phones, if you can’t find it just take a picture of the QR code on the poster PREVENTION OF DEMENTIA USING MOBILE PHONE APPLICATIONS, A MULTINATIONAL RANDOMISED CONTROLLED TRAIL IN PROGRESS (Hafdi et al)
TO BE CONTINUED…
