A third type, a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or "mini-stroke," is a temporary blockage of blood flow that can be a warning sign of a major stroke.
Treatment of a stroke is highly time-sensitive. The longer someone suffers a stroke, the more brain cells are lost, potentially leading to increased disability or death.
During a stroke, brain cells die at an alarming rate, with approximately 1.9 million brain cells lost per minute.
The keynote at the Shields Society lunch was Neurologist Kevin Keenan at UC "Dr. Keenan's research focuses on developing and testing tools used during neurological emergencies to identify which patients are having a severe type of stroke called large vessel occlusion stroke. Treatment of this disease is time sensitive and earlier identification could enable more patients to receive emergency treatments that can greatly improve their chances of recovery."
His talk was "Every Minute Counts - Innovations in the Early Diagnosis and Treatment of Stroke."
They had some neat demos at the happy hour before the talk. One was VR goggles that allow you to look at a 3D rendering of a cat scan showing brain arteries and vessels and find the location of a stroke. It uses Quest VR goggles from Meta based on Oculus goggles which Meta bought.
Stryker, who makes catheters, stents, etc. was there with a bunch of things for extracting clots and angioplasty.
They had a demo unit which had a catheter inside of a long box which detected the location of the catheter and a guide wire and displayed it on a screen which simulated a CT scan which I got to play with.
Keenan is looking at better ways of triage to decide whether to use
the clot-dissolving medicine, tPA (for tissue plasminogen activator), or removal whith a Thrombectomy or surgery.
Thrombectomy can be performed in various ways, including minimally invasive methods using catheters and specialized devices or, in some cases, through open surgery.
See Thrombectomy
Apparently there are only a few ER's which can do Thrombectomy. Knowing where to send a patient is important because stroke treatment is highly time dependent.
He was gathering nation wide data to look at success rates from different states depending on the protocol.
There are mobile CT scanners but they cost $5 million
I was surprised that they sometimes start the catheter with the femoral artery and go thru the heart to get to the brain. They can also start in the wrist.
Dr. Keenan’s research is testing a new device that uses a technique called cranial accelerometry to predict which patients are having large artery strokes.
Clinican Scientest Development Award for Interventional Neurlogy - American Brain Foundation.
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