Preliminary investigation into the use of diffuse optical tomography for monitoring and imaging stroke

摘要

Abstract: For patients with ischemic stroke there is benefit to early treatment (within 3 hours) with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator, rt-PA, an FDA approved thrombolytic drug. The use of rt-PA within the first 3 hours of an ischemic stroke is based upon a clinical trial showing an increased probability of good functional recovery in the treated group. The challenge is now to individualize therapy in order to decrease the degree of permanent brain injury due to ischemia in as many patients as possible. This requires new tools to assay brian flood flow and tissue injury. However, there is currently no means to non-invasively monitor brain perfusion. There is no non-invasive method to determine whether administration of thrombolytic drug in an individual patient is actually effective in causing reperfusion. We have developed such a method based on using light in conjunction with periodic bolus injections of an optical vascular contrast agent to continuously monitor brain perfusion non-invasively. !19