Towards Individualised Workup of Stroke Aetiology

Call for Papers

Acute stroke remains a medical emergency with massive impact on victims, carers, and society. An increasing number of well-documented treatment options have been developed, and especially stroke unit care and intravenous thrombolysis have been implemented widely in the Western world improving prognosis after stroke. Secondary prevention of stroke depends on documenting stroke pathophysiology and thereby enabling the physician to prescribe the best documented treatment (e.g., an anticoagulant in atrial fibrillation).

Advanced diagnostics including multimodal stroke imaging, biomarkers, and new methods of atrial fibrillation detection have been introduced into acute stroke units during the last decade. It is, however, not well described how these new options best contribute to documenting the stroke mechanism. A key to optimising acute stroke treatment is increasing the knowledge on where and how different diagnostics provide the best basis to make the optimal clinical decisions.

We would like to focus on how to achieve individualised workup after acute stroke. A large number of new options have emerged within this field, but their potential diagnostic gain remaining has still not been well described.

We invite authors to submit original research and review articles that seek to determine rational use of diagnostics aiming at individualised workup after acute stroke. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Multiparametric CT techniques in patients with potential cardioembolic stroke
• Is MRI helpful in identifying patients with potential cardio embolic stroke?
• Does extended brain imaging lead to better identification of patients with likely cardioembolic stroke than noncontrast CT?
• Does CT of the heart have a role in the acute workup? A snap-shop of a smoking gun
• Selection of patients for cardioembolic workup—is a simple approach possible?
• Cases with rare presentations including new migraine aura or other irritative phenomena
• Echocardiography in patients with paroxystic atrial fibrillation
• Screening methods for atrial fibrillation after stroke or TIA
• Ultrasound in the posterior circulation
• The aortic arch
• ‘Insignificant’ intracranial stenosis
• What is needed to think about brain atrophy and leukoaraiosis?

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal’s Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/srt/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/submit/journals/srt/ethio/ according to the following timetable:

Lead Guest Editor

• Hanne Christensen, Bispebjerg Hospital and University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Guest Editors

• Götz Thomalla, Department of Neurology, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
• Anders Christensen, Department of Radiology, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg, Copenhagen, Denmark