The Acute ischemic cerebral stroke is a disabling disease; however, it has become an increasingly treatable due to the recent developments in intravascular clot extraction.

Until recently pharmacological treatment, using intra venous thrombolysis was standard treatment. For non-responders, or patients with contraindications to thrombolysis, attempts would instead be made to remove the clot via intra-arterial thrombectomy. Recent studies have demonstrated the benefits of brain parenchymal imaging to guide therapeutic decisions, and the advantage of the immediate and extended use of thrombectomy devices. Clot composition (e.g. fibrin, red and white blood cell content) plays an important role in the choice of treatment modality. Therfore we have developed a multi-modal and multi-scale approach to characterize 3D volumetric composition of clots by histopathological analysis, laboratory phase-contrast micro- and nano-CT X-ray imaging, electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.

Figure Caption: Multi-modal and multi-scale X-ray analysis (left, from molecular to organ scales). 3D rendering of a high-resolution phase-contrast nanoCT of a clot fragment showing it composition (red blood cell-red, indigenous calcifications –pink, fibrins and platelets -blue). 

• Dumitriu LaGrange, D.; Reymond, P.; Brina, O.; Zboray, R.; Neels, A.; Wanke, I.; Lövblad, K. O. Spatial Heterogeneity of Occlusive Thrombus in Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Systematic Review. J. Neuroradiol. 2023, 50, 352-360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurad.2023.01.004.
• Saghamanesh, S.; Dimitriu LaGrange, D.; Reymond, P.; Wanke, I.; Lövblad, K.-O.; Neels, A.; Zboray, R. Non Contrast Enhanced Volumetric Histology of Blood Clots through High Resolution Propagation-Based X-Ray Microtomography. Sci. Rep. 2022, 12, 2778, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06623-8.