New approach to identify ischemic stroke patients at risk to develop hemorrhagic transformation.

Some patients with ischemic stroke are subject to hemorrhagic transformation, a complication leading to increased patient morbidity and mortality. The discovery of biomarkers that can be used to identify ischemic strokes prone to this complication are very important for the clinical practice because therapy could be altered to mitigate the risk. We discuss here the results of a trial that evaluated for the first time tight junction proteins as biomarkers of blood-brain barrier disruption and hemorrhagic transformation in ischemic stroke.