By Dr Andrew Bivard
In early May 2014, I was fortunate to attend the European Stroke Conference, held this year in Nice, France. The European Stroke Conference is the largest stroke conference worldwide, bringing the best of the best to one place to share the latest research findings and developments in stroke care and treatment.
The first day of the conference was very busy, as I had three presentations to give on research that was based out of the Hunter Region. The last talk of the day was the most provocative – a highly controversial investigation on using advanced imaging to avoid treating patients who we suspect will not benefit. We successfully demonstrated that there are patients who may have severe clinical symptoms but will get better without potentially dangerous interventions. Following our presentation, a journalist from MedScape (a leading online medical research publication) approached and was keen to write an article about our study which was subsequently published in mid-May.
The last day of the European Stroke Conference was equally as busy, with presentations on clinical trials and new treatments. The highlight of the day was a presentation from a Glasgow group examining Teneteplase, the drug that HMRI intends to investigate in a phase 3 trail. Their results highlight the strengths of our up and coming phase 3 TASTE trial that will implement advanced imaging as a new treatment approach for acute stroke throughout the world.
After the presentation by the University of Glasgow group, we arrived that I would meet one of their study coordinators in Melbourne during August for a data exchange. This will allow us to pool data sets of patients treated with Tenecteplase to increase the power of our research findings.
We will aim to demonstrate that Tenecteplase is just as safe, if not safer than the current rtPA treatment. This is an absolutely critical analysis that we need to do in order to recruit sites to use Tenecteplase for our TASTE trial.
After the stroke conference, I then boarded a train to Milan to present at an MRI conference. Our presentation focused on work that has been done over the last two years and will be used to design a rehabilitation trial for stroke survivors and resent ischaemic stroke patients due to start this year.
As you can see, it was a very productive, informative and enlightening experience! It was fantastic to be able to share the work we are doing here at HMRI with the rest of the world. Big thanks to the Greater Charitable Foundation and the Greater Building Society for their ongoing support of HMRI’s Stroke Research Group.
Watch Andrew discussing his work here.
