Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Stroke is the world's number one cause of adult disability. Strokes result from a number of different causes, including problems with the heart, the blood vessels that supply the brain, or the blood vessels in the brain itself. Determining the cause of stroke is an integral part of treatment selection and the prevention of future strokes. Current methods used to determine the cause of stroke require extensive investigations that are costly, time consuming, and are not able to determine the cause of stroke in as many as 30% of patients. We propose to develop a blood marker that can be used to determine the cause of stroke in a more expedient, cost efficient, and accurate manner. Recent technologies allow the assessment of all genes that get activated when a stroke occurs. This offers the tremendous ability to analyze thousands of activated genes, some of which occur only in strokes of a specific cause. In a preliminary study done by our group, this new blood marker of stroke was able to successfully predict the stroke cause in 15 patients. Our study plans to look at 300 stroke patients and compare them to 150 non-stroke patients to determine which activated genes need to be looked at in order to reliably predict the stroke cause. We are particularly interested in the 30% of stroke patients who currently are unable to have their cause of stroke determined. Strokes caused by a heart problem are generally treated differently compared to those cause by a blood vessel problem in the neck or brain. Identification of the cause of stroke in this large unknown group would alter treatment decisions and ultimately reduce the risk of future strokes. This study will also provide significant amount of information on genes expressed in stroke that can be used for future studies to better understand stroke, and lead to the development of novel therapies for this common medical disease.