Stroke Prevention Research
Dr. J. David Spence
&
Dr. Daniel Hackam
Research at SPARC
SPARC is a research unit of the Robarts Research Institute focused on broadening the understanding of the causes of strokes and heart attacks and developing new treatments for stroke and heart attack prevention. We run clinical trials to determine how successful stroke and heart attack treatments are and apply our ever growing knowledge in the treatment of patients with a high risk of having a stroke or a heart attack.
Our current research is focused on people with arterial walls that are hardening, thickening and who have arterial walls that have lost some of their elasticity because of fatty deposits on the walls of their arteries. This is call arteriosclerosis. The known causes of arteriosclerosis are
- Age
- Male sex
- Smoking
- High blood pressure and cholesterol
- Diabetes
- New Risk Factors
- Homocysteinemia
- Lipoprotein
but these risk factors account for only about half the risk of dying from a stroke or heart attack.
In our research we look to broaden our knowledge of the risk factors of arteriosclerosis so that better treatments can be developed. Our research has shown that the amount of fatty deposits (plaque) on the walls of the arteries is a very strong indicator of the chance of dying from a stroke or a heart attack. People in the top 25% of plaque area in their arteries are 3.5 times more likely to die from a stroke or a heart attack than people in the bottom 25%.
With this knowledge we have developed ways of accurately measuring arterial plaque using ultrasound. This gives us the ability to design treatment programs to reduce arterial plaque in patients and measure each program's effectiveness.
SPARC runs clinical trials to study the effect of new treatment programs in reducing the amount of fatty deposits in our volunteer's arteries. These clinical trials allow us to develop very effective treatment programs and enable SPARC to promote these treatment programs and achieve our goal of reducing the number of people who die from strokes and heart attacks.