Circulating endothelial cells and stroke: influence of stroke subtypes and changes during the course of disease.

Background: Circulating endothelial cells (CECs) are a novel and valuable marker of endothelial damage in a variety of vascular disorders. There is limited information as to CEC counts and the time course of CECs in subtypes of stroke.

Methods: We studied 49 patients with stroke (18 with atherothrombotic infarction in the territory of the middle cerebral artery, 16 with cardioembolic stroke, and 15 with lacunar stroke).

Intra-arterial thrombolysis using rt-PA in patients with acute stroke due to vessel occlusion of anterior and/or posterior cerebral circulation.

Introduction: The aim of our study was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of intra-arterial (IA) thrombolysis using recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) in patients with acute stroke due to occlusion in the anterior or posterior circulation.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical and radiological data of 88 consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent emergency cerebral angiography for the purpose of subsequent IA thrombolysis. The neurological deficit on admission and discharge was graded using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score.

Correlative assessment of cerebral blood flow obtained with perfusion CT and positron emission tomography in symptomatic stenotic carotid disease.

Twelve patients with ICA stenosis underwent dynamic perfusion computed tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) studies at rest and after acetazolamide challenge. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) maps on perfusion CT resulted from a deconvolution of parenchymal time-concentration curves by an arterial input function (AIF) in the anterior cerebral artery as well as in both anterior choroidal arteries. CBF was measured by [(15)O]H(2)O PET using multilinear least-squares minimization procedure based on the one-compartment model.