Article: Dean - Circulating Endothelial-Cell Test May Predict Plaque Ruptures

Dean's Stroke Musing

This was also news in my local paper today. I don't see why the same test couldn't be used to predict strokes from ruptured plaque. Of course I don't see what they could do to prevent the stroke. Maybe hypothermia in advance, blast you with warfarin. See the original article Circulating Endothelial-Cell Test May Predict Plaque Ruptures in TheHeart.org.  -- Dean's Stroke Musing.


Physicians may soon be able to determine which patients with chest pain are on the brink of an acute MI with a blood test that measures circulating endothelial cells (CEC), a study by researchers at the Scripps Translational Science Institute shows

"We have used a very robust technology to quickly and accurately identify circulating endothelial cells in a STEMI [ST-segment elevation MI] population as compared with healthy controls. [This is a] significant advance beyond the previous trials, in that we used rapid technology to do this," Dr Paddy Barrett (Scripps Translational Science Institute, La Jolla, CA) told heartwire. "[The study results] show that, at a morphological level, these cells are grossly different between the MI group and the healthy control group, as they display vastly different morphological characteristics."

The project at Scripps was launched and led by senior author Dr Eric Topol; Barrett has now taken over the project, trying to apply this knowledge into a point-of-care test for acute MI ......

See the full article Circulating Endothelial-Cell Test May Predict Plaque Ruptures
                          in Dean's Stroke Musing.