Stroke & Cerebrovascular Diseases Research

State-of-the-Art Care for Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases

The Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has a long-standing history of providing excellent care for patients with ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke, and brain aneurysms throughout the United States, and is one of the premier centers for cerebrovascular diseases worldwide. The department offers the full range of medical, surgical and interventional capabilities state-of-the-art neuroimaging, neurointerventional and endovascular care.

The BIDMC Stroke service includes both patient care (inpatient and outpatient) and research components. Our staff is multi-disciplinary and is comprised of leading physicians and allied health personnel within a broad range of specialties, including vascular neurology, emergency medicine, neurosurgery, vascular surgery, interventional neuroradiology and rehabilitation.

Our multi-disciplinary stroke team is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and immediate evaluation through the BIDMC emergency department is available for all stroke emergencies.

Our Services

• Advanced imaging methods developed at BIDMC for guiding therapeutic decisions, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with diffusion- and perfusion-weighted capabilities and MR angiography (BIDMC is one of only a few medical centers in the United States to offer immediate access to these imaging tools)
• Neurology/Neurosurgery Intensive Care Unit
• Neurointerventional services, including intra-arterial thrombolysis, mechanical clot disruption, arterial stenting and coiling of aneurysms
• Clinical trials, which allow us to treat patients with ischemic stroke up to nine hours after stroke symptom onset, patients who wake up from sleep with stroke, patients in the immediate post-operative period and patients who have contraindications to thrombolysis
• Endovascular and/or surgical management of cerebral aneurysms (coiling and clipping) and hemorrhages
• Vascular surgery, such as urgent carotid endarterectomy or stenting/angioplasty
• Endovascular closure for patent foramen ovale in patients with cardiac embolism
• Outpatient stroke prevention and multidisciplinary vascular neurology clinics

Our Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease Research

BIDMC is a member of the NIH StrokeNet trials network, sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

BIDMC leads National Institutes of Health (NIH) research studies and clinical trials designed to find better treatments for stroke based on the most updated information from around the world.

Our stroke experts direct translational research (transforming scientific discoveries into clinical applications), epidemiologic research and clinical trials (studies that involve people) to develop new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to improve stroke care and recovery. The National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders, and other industry sponsors fund these studies.