Grant: Operating Grant

The treatment of strokes has greatly improved over the last few decades with the development of drugs, which limit the damage produced by stroke. In addition, physicians are able to use imaging technology to see the brain and its vessels in new ways using CT scans. These scans can reveal an existing blood clot lodged in the blood vessel resulting in the stroke within the brain. These scans, if repeated can also determine if the blood cot dissolved away so blood flow is restored to the brain. Currently, there is an urgency to clear the blood vessels of clots as early as possible from the occurrence of the stroke to improve the patient's chances for recovery. Yet we do not know if a given treatment will be successful in achieving clot dissolving. In this grant, we plan to take CT scan pictures of the blood clot in the blood vessel and repeat the CT scan of the blood vessels four hours later to determine if the clot has dissolved. This approach will be performed after the drug treatment has been given to each patient. We will then know how often the blood clot dissolves using the drug treatment. We will also be able to identify features about the patient and features on the first CT scan of the brain and blood vessels which predict that the clkot will dissolve within four hours when a specific drug treatment is given. This research design, will for the time, help to create a "score card" based on the patient history and CAT Scan that will assist the physician to determine the best course of action to take. The research will be conducted at multiple sites and will enroll 350 patients over three years. Information about how much recovery each patient achieves will also be collected and compared to whether the blook clot dissolved.