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.
Lenzi
G L
GL
Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy.
Di Piero
V
V
Zanette
E
E
Argentino
C
C
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