Neuroprotection in acute ischemic stroke.

Acute ischemic stroke, one of the most prominent causes of death and disability in the modern world has attracted an extensive amount of research on its pathophysiology and treatment. There has been significant progress with successful reperfusion treatments associated with improved clinical outcomes, but neuroprotective strategies have failed to show clinical benefit despite promising benchtop results. Unfortunately reperfusion strategies can be employed in a small number of patients who present in the appropriate time window. Neuroprotective strategies may aid in prolonging time windows, thereby potentially increasing the number of eligible patients to benefit from reperfusion treatments. Additional strategies can be used to potentially protect the brain after reperfusion thereby preventing edema and hemorrhage. Previous clinical studies have failed to show benefit likely due to poor patient selection, altering time windows that had shown benefit in bench models and failure to link treatments with reperfusion.