The University of Cincinnati's Joseph Broderick, MD, recently joined the Know Stroke Podcast to discuss his first-hand experiences of how stroke care and research has progressed throughout his time as a physician-researcher.

"I started when we were literally testing tPA (a clot-busting drug and first proven treatment for ischemic strokes), and now we’re seeing some major advances," said Broderick, professor in UC’s Department of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine in the College of Medicine, director of the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute and a UC Health physician. "But there’s still a lot of work to do because about half the people who get either a drug like tPA or have the clot pulled out still don’t have good outcomes. And we also have to work on how do we help people who had significant damage to the brain."

Broderick is the contact principal investigator for the FASTEST clinical trial that is testing a treatment for strokes caused by intracerebral hemorrhage, when blood vessels in the brain rupture and cause bleeding in the brain. There are currently no proven treatments for these kinds of strokes.

"In FASTEST, we’re using this drug that we know actually does slow bleeding," he said. "One of the things when we looked at the prior data from other trials is that the benefits seemed to occur if you gave it within a couple hours after onset. So what the challenge in this study is...we’re treating people within two hours of when they have the onset of their symptoms."

Listen to the Know Stroke Podcast.

Read more about the FASTEST trial.

Featured photo at top of Dr. Broderick. Photo/Joseph Fuqua II/University of Cincinnati