The proposed role of optical sensing in translational stroke research

The past three decades of clinical disappointments in treating stroke must compel us to rethink our strategy. Given the enormous complexity of the clinical disease, the "one size fits all" approach to stroke treatment is unlikely to succeed. The effective treatment of stroke aimed at reversing ischemic injury will require monitoring of tissue injury and response to therapeutic interventions, perhaps the use of multiple drugs, sequentially administered in a timely manner. The proposed sequential intra-arterial therapy for stroke (SITS) relies on the development of novel intra-arterial treatments of ischemic brain injury in the magnetic resonance imaging environment. However, translating SITS protocol from bench to bedside could greatly benefit from the advances in optical technologies. Compared to magnetic resonance imaging, optical sensing technology promises to be quicker, cheaper, simpler, and more versatile, and thus is ideally suited for investigating the fast kinetics and monitoring the pharmacological effects of intra-arterial drugs.