Emerging Therapies for Acute Ischemic Stroke

The development of additional effective therapies for acute ischemic stroke remains a challenging but critical endeavor. Intravenous recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) initiated within 3 hours of stroke onset remains the only approved and validated therapy for acute ischemic stroke, and regulatory approval has expanded recently. Many other therapies have been evaluated, and these trials have either been inconclusive or negative.1 These acute stroke trials do provide valuable information concerning how to implement future trials and some glimmers of hope about existing data. Some of the lessons learned from prior acute stroke trials that will help to guide future trials are outlined below. The two fundamental approaches to the development of acute stroke therapy remain reperfusion and neuroprotection. This short review will focus on the current status of both approaches and how they might be combined, hopefully in the near future. Negative acute stroke treatment trials may be explained by the following: