The Perspective of Pathophysiology - Guided Stroke Therapy

Treatment of patients with acute stroke is still far from being satisfactory. This is surprising since from experimental studies in animals a plenitude of substances is known to be therapeutically efficient in acute stroke. One of the most important reasons for this discrepancy is probably the extreme pathophysiological heterogeneity of human stroke. It is well known that drugs which are therapeutically efficient in one particular “pathophysiological situation” can be less beneficial or even harmful in other situations. Thus, the attempted “one drug for one disease” approach used in clinical trials may be inadequate for the acute stroke condition. The logical consequence of this is the attempt to identify pathophysiological processes in patients with acute stroke on an individual basis and to treat patients accordingly with the drug effective in the specific pathophysioglocial condition: The perspective of pathophysiology – guided stroke therapy.