Stroke

Principle Investigator:
Professor Pankaj Sharma

There are currently few treatments for stroke, either antiplatelets or anticoagulants. The BRAINS study is trying to identify which genes are responsible for stroke to enable development of targeted drugs and health campaigns for those who may be genetically at risk.

Patients who are over 18, Caucasian or South Asian who have had a haemorrhagic or ischaemic stroke defined on CT or MRI.

Control patients are also needed for this study who have not had a stroke so non blood relatives of the stroke patients are also eligible to join the study.

Principle Investigator:
Professor Pankaj Sharma

To establish a DNA biorepository of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) patients of adult age. CVT accounts for only 1% of strokes.

To join this study patients must be over 18 and have had a CVT determined using CT, MRI, CTA, MRA or angiogram.

Principle Investigator:
Dr Brendan Affley

Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) is a serious health problem responsible for about a fifth of all strokes (lacunar stroke) worldwide and is the major cause of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia, and is also an important pathology underlying intracerebral haemorrhage. The pathogenesis of SVD is largely unknown, and this knowledge gap is a major factor behind the lack of specific therapies to delay SVD progression.

This study is looking for genes causing a particular type of stroke affecting small blood vessels in the brain.

Patients who have had a lacunar stroke within the last 2 years (with an MRI within 1 year of recruitment) are eligible to join this study.

Principle Investigator:
Dr Brendan Affley

The hypothesis for this trial is that patients with carotid stenosis at low and intermediate risk for stroke, optimised medical therapy (OMT) alone is as effective in the long-term prevention of cerebral infarction and myocardial infarction (MI) as revascularisation and OMT combined.

Patients with atherosclerotic carotid artery stenosis (>50%, NASCET criteria), suitable for revascularisation with CAR score indicating low or intermediate risk are eligible for this study.

If eligible for the trial patients are randomised to immediate carotid revascularisation surgery and OMT or to OMT alone. Follow up for these patients is over 5 years.

Principle Investigator:
Dr Brendan Affley

REstart or STop Antithrombotics Randomised Trial

Principle Investigator:
Dr Brendan Affley

SIGNUM is a study looking at understanding the factors that influence a broad range of outcomes in stroke (biological, radiological and functional).

We want to find out if:

• There are markers in the blood that can help us diagnose a stroke
• Genes that can help understand who is at risk of stroke
• Markers or genes that might help recovery from stroke
• Routine medical data collected over a lifetime can help improve stroke care

All patients >18 years old who present to or are referred to the stroke service are eligible to join this study