Speaker: Michael Hill 

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand why balanced arms are desirable
2. Describe trade-offs and benefits of approaches to achieving balanced arms in RCTs

Importance of topic:

Understand the context of techniques like stratification, permuted blocks, minimization and minimal sufficient balance.  The key lesson is to worship at the alter of randomization, upon which statistical inference is based.

Speaker: Elisabeth Tournier-Lasserve

Learning Objectives:

1. How and when to suspect a monogenic stroke condition?
2. How to establish the diagnosis of this condition ? Which are the genes to screen ?
3. What are the implications for clinical care and genetic counseling ?
4. What to do when a genetic cause is suspected but molecular screening is negative

Importance of topic:

Missing  the monogenic etiology of stroke particularly in young patients would be very deleterious and there are more and more monogenic conditions leading to stroke which are identified today with the availability of next generation sequencing. A vascular neurologist should know these etiologies for a good clinical care.

Speaker: Valery Feigin 

Learning Objectives:

1. What primary stroke/CVD prevention strategies are currently available
2. What gaps and challenges exist with their use
3. What can be done to improve primary prevention

Importance of topic:

There is a tsunami of stroke burden in virtually every country of the world, already threatening the sustainability of the health systems. Stroke is now the second leading cause of death and disability worldwide. The lifetime risk of stroke has also increased over the last 20 years by 50% and is now 1 in 4. This strongly suggests that currently used primary stroke prevention strategies are not sufficiently effective. To improve primary stroke prevention it is crucial to understand advantages and disadvantages of the currently used primary stroke prevention strategies and to review the most promising population-wide and individual strategies to meet one the WSO key objectives to cut stroke incidence in the world in half. All of these will be presented at the lecture.

Speaker: Gregory Lip

Prof. Lip holds the Price-Evans Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Liverpool and is one of the world’s leading researchers in AF related research. He is an expert in the prevention of stroke in people with AF. Prof. Lip’s research has helped us identify which people benefit from thromboprophylaxis and more recently, he has been exploring the link between AF and cognitive function, as well as simplifying pathways for holistic care in these patients.

Prof. Lip will discuss the link between AF and cognitive function at ESO-WSO 2020: “I am looking forward to the joint ESO-WSO conference in Vienna and look forward to sharing the latest advances in AF and stroke prevention. Easy as ABC…”.

Speaker: Joanna M Wardlaw

Learning Objectives:

1. The importance of managing established and emerging vascular risk factors including diet and lifestyle
2. Novel therapeutic targets that are now either being tested or in planning stages

Importance of topic:

It is important because the commonest manifestation of cerebrovascular disease is not stroke but cognitive impairment and dementia, which are largely due to small vessel disease. Given the huge advances in prevention and treatment of stroke in the last 30 years, stroke doctors are in prime position to improve prevention and treatment of dementia.

Speaker: Hugh Stephen Markus

Learning Objectives:

An update on what we know and what we don’t know about treating vascular cognitive impairment and dementia

Importance of topic:

Vascular cognitive impairment and dementia is the second most common cause of dementia and presents a huge health burden worldwide.

Speaker: Mike Sharma 

Learning Objectives:

• To review state of the art in antithrombotic therapy for large vessel disease.
• Explore the dual pathway approach and identify patients who can benefit from this approach

Importance of topic:

Patients with large vessel disease have high rates of stroke recurrence as well as other vascular events. New evidence suggests that combinations of antithrombotic agents are more effective than current options.

Speaker: Raul Gomes Nogueira 

Learning Objectives:

• To better understand the concept of futility . Benefit is defined by any improvement – “better” outcomes do not necessarily mean “good” outcomes.
• To discuss the concepts of “Over-Selection and “Passive Harm” – We must recognize that we are more likely to harm patients by depriving them from thrombectomy rather than treating them! We need to understand the current decision-making process of LVOS treatment under the perspective of other medical areas.

Importance of topic:

Over-Selection and underutilization of mechanical thrombectomy represent major ongoing hazards to stroke patients. Precision medicine and the individualization of decision-making process rather than the adoption of over-strict imaging and guideline-based criteria represent the most patient-centric model.

Speaker: Rustam Al-Shahi Salman

Learning Objectives:

I will share the best available evidence to inform the therapeutic approaches to prevent major vascular events after ICH. I will identify the main therapeutic uncertainties to inspire clinical researchers to address them.

Importance of topic:

ICH survivors are at considerable risk of major vascular events, but doctors and patients are often not confident about how to prevent these events with blood pressure lowering, antithrombotic drugs, and cholesterol-lowering drugs.

Speaker: Deidre Anne De Silva 

Learning Objectives:

1. To understand the possible impact of stroke campaigns
2. To learn about successful methods of disseminating key messages that have been employed

Importance of topic:

There are proven stroke treatments and preventive strategies but these are underutilized due to poor awareness. Knowing how to spread awareness messages effectively is key to optimizing utilization of proven stroke strategies.

Speaker: Peter Sandercock 

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the  advantages and disadvantages of  ‘intention to treat’ vs ‘per protocol’ analyses of a randomised trial
2. Help you better understand the implications of a trial’s result  for your clinical practice

Importance of topic:

Randomised controlled trials remain the gold standard method to evaluate treatments, so all stroke professionals need to know how to interpret trial results to be able to apply them appropriately to their own clinical practice.

Speaker: Bruce Campbell

Learning Objectives:

This lecture aims to familiarise the audience with the options available for automated processing of stroke imaging, including CT perfusion, angiography and non-contrast CT. The validated thresholds for perfusion imaging as they apply to different software will also be discussed.

Importance of topic:

With the evidence for perfusion-imaging selection of patients who benefit from thrombolysis and thrombectomy beyond standard time windows, the availability of automated software processing has become increasingly important. Decision-assistance tools can also be used to identify large vessel occlusion and subtle non-contrast CT changes to enhance clinician assessments.

Speaker: Thorsten Steiner 

Learning Objectives:

1. Audience should be able to evaluate the available evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCT) in acute intracerebal hemorrhage (ICH)
2. Audience should be able to discuss about the meaning of timing, age, and volume when making a treatment decision in acute ICH

Importance of topic:

Acute intracerebal hemorrhage (ICH) has a high mortality rate. Prognosis depends on early interventions. RCT in acute ICH are mostly negative or neutral. The talk is important because recent and ongoing RCTs impact on daily routine.

Speaker: Jonathan Rosand 

Learning Objectives:

1. This lecture will teach participants of the extraordinary ways in which the genetic variation we inherit influences intracerebral hemorrhage and its related conditions
2. It will also demystify how geneticists go about interpreting exome-wide and genome-wide results

Importance of topic:

Genome-wide data is being used for everything from discovering new drug targets to stratifying risk of common conditions. Everybody who cares for stroke patients will benefit from a basic understanding of sequencing data and its implications.

Speaker: Francesca Bosetti

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the reasons for prior failures to translate excellent, promising pre-clinical stroke therapies into successful treatment for stroke victims.
2. Understand the elements of rigor required to study stroke treatments in pre-clinical stroke models.

Importance of topic:

A plethora of putative neuroprotectants proceeded to clinical trial based on favorable preclinical assessment, only to fail in subsequent clinical trials of human stroke patients. The plethora of clinical failures has cost industry and governments hundreds of millions of dollars and wasted the time, talent, and effort of hundreds of investigators and coordinators. The recent successful development of thrombectomy for acute ischemic stroke generated considerable enthusiasm for re-testing compounds in combination with thrombectomy. Thus, SPAN is intended to screen and select highly promising candidate treatments for possible study in StrokeNet.  A success in SPAN will provide a significant impetus to renew efforts toward successful clinical deployment of novel, promising neuroprotectants. In the past 5 years, two significant developments raise new hope for neuroprotection: the appearance of compounds with multiple mechanisms of action, and the promulgation of new standards for the rigorous preclinical development of stroke treatment candidates. The SPAN effort affords the highly significant opportunity to find a promising candidate treatment, test it in StrokeNet, and then back-validate the ideal preclinical testing paradigm that predicts success in clinical trials.