A team of scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently created a new imaging method that may predict patients’ risks for post-treatment brain bleeding after they have experienced a stroke.
The study showed that MRI brain scans demonstrate a link between the disruption in the blood-brain barrier’s protection and the severity of the brain’s bleeding after the patient receives invasive stroke therapy.
This Diffusion and Perfusion Imaging Evaluation for Understanding Stroke Evolution (DEFUSE)-2 Study is meant to determine how MRIs can improve the outcomes for patients who have endovascular therapy. This therapy is typically conducted after an ischemic stroke, when a blood clot stops the blood flow to the brain.
“The biggest impact of this research is that information from MRI scans routinely collected at a number of research hospitals and stroke centers can inform treating physicians on the risk of bleeding,” Richard Leigh, a scientist at NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and an author of the study, said.
Studying the blood-brain barrier disruption that is shown in these images may help physicians to detect patients who are less likely to gain improvements from endovascular therapy.
“With the growing precision of brain imaging technology, researchers are able to get a detailed look at what is going on in the brain during a stroke,” Walter Koroshetz, director of NINDS, said. “Innovative studies, such as DEFUSE-2, can help patients and their doctors make more informed decisions about medical care.”
