How to assess acute cerebral ischemia.
There are different approaches to the assessment of acute stroke. Its causes, its severity, and/or its final prognosis may be investigated. The traditional approach is anatomoclinical. It is basically limited to finding out if the lesion is a hemorrhage or an ischemia, and its location. This approach is derived from and supported by the fact that acute stroke is still without a valid therapy. In our opinion, not stroke but individual patients presenting with stroke should be treated. The pathophysiology of the individual stroke should be investigated by means of new techniques: magnetic resonance, emission tomography, and transcranial Doppler. These new techniques will be important in the future, making it possible to create effective therapeutic strategies, designed for treating a particular subgroup of patients, as in the case of fibrinolytic agents. The main aspects of these new techniques for evaluating acute ischemic stroke have been reviewed in this article.
Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy.
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Lenzi
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Di Piero
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Zanette
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Argentino
D000208:Acute Disease; D002545:Brain Ischemia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D002561:Cerebrovascular Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D011859:Radiography