Pre-hospital stroke monitoring past, present, and future: a perspective.

Integrated brain-machine interface signifies a transformative advancement in neurological monitoring and intervention modalities for events such as stroke, the leading cause of disability. Historically, stroke management relied on clinical evaluation and imaging. While today's stroke landscape integrates artificial intelligence for proactive clinical decision-making, mainly in imaging and stroke detection, it depends on clinical observation for early detection. Cardiovascular monitoring and detection systems, which have become standard throughout healthcare and wellness settings, provide a model for future cerebrovascular monitoring and detection. This commentary reviews the progression of continuous stroke monitoring, spotlighting contemporary innovations and prospective avenues, and emphasizes the influential roles of cutting-edge technologies in shaping stroke care.

Detection of gene mutations and gene-gene fusions in circulating cell-free DNA of glioblastoma patients: an avenue for clinically relevant diagnostic analysis.

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common type of glioma and is uniformly fatal. Currently, tumour heterogeneity and mutation acquisition are major impedances for tailoring personalized therapy. We collected blood and tumour tissue samples from 25 GBM patients and 25 blood samples from healthy controls. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) was extracted from the plasma of GBM patients and from healthy controls. Tumour DNA was extracted from fresh tumour samples. Extracted DNA was sequenced using a whole-genome sequencing procedure. We also collected 180 tumour DNA datasets from GBM patients publicly available at the TCGA/PANCANCER project. These data were analysed for mutations and gene-gene fusions that could be potential druggable targets. We found that plasma cfDNA concentrations in GBM patients were significantly elevated (22.6 ± 5 ng·mL-1 ), as compared to healthy controls (1.4 ± 0.4 ng·mL-1 ) of the same average age. We identified unique mutations in the cfDNA and tumour DNA of each GBM patient, including some of the most frequently mutated genes in GBM according to the COSMIC database (TP53, 18.75%; EGFR, 37.5%; NF1, 12.5%; LRP1B, 25%; IRS4, 25%). Using our gene-gene fusion database, ChiTaRS 5.0, we identified gene-gene fusions in cfDNA and tumour DNA, such as KDR-PDGFRA and NCDN-PDGFRA, which correspond to previously reported alterations of PDGFRA in GBM (44% of all samples). Interestingly, the PDGFRA protein fusions can be targeted by tyrosine kinase inhibitors such as imatinib, sunitinib, and sorafenib. Moreover, we identified BCR-ABL1 (in 8% of patients), COL1A1-PDGFB (8%), NIN-PDGFRB (8%), and FGFR1-BCR (4%) in cfDNA of patients, which can be targeted by analogues of imatinib. ROS1 fusions (CEP85L-ROS1 and GOPC-ROS1), identified in 8% of patient cfDNA, might be targeted by crizotinib, entrectinib, or larotrectinib. Thus, our study suggests that integrated analysis of cfDNA plasma concentration, gene mutations, and gene-gene fusions can serve as a diagnostic modality for distinguishing GBM patients who may benefit from targeted therapy. These results open new avenues for precision medicine in GBM, using noninvasive liquid biopsy diagnostics to assess personalized patient profiles. Moreover, repeated detection of druggable targets over the course of the disease may provide real-time information on the evolving molecular landscape of the tumour.

Radiosurgery for brain metastases and cerebral edema.

The objective of this study was to assess reduction in cerebral edema following linear accelerator radiosurgery (LINAC) as first line therapy for brain metastasis. We reviewed the medical records of all patients who underwent LINAC radiosurgery for brain metastasis at our institution during 2010-2012, and who had not previously undergone either surgery or whole brain radiotherapy. Data were analyzed for 55 brain metastases from 46 patients (24 males), mean age 59.9 years. During the 2 months following LINAC radiosurgery, the mean steroid dose decreased from 4.8 to 2.6 mg/day, the mean metastasis volume decreased from 3.79±4.12 cc to 2.8±4.48 cc (p=0.001), and the mean edema volume decreased from 16.91±30.15 cc to 12.85±24.47 cc (p=0.23). The 17 patients with reductions of more than 50% in brain edema volume had single metastases. Edema volume in the nine patients with two brain metastases remained stable in five patients (volume change <10%, 0-2 cc) and increased in four patients (by >10%, 2-14 cc). In a subanalysis of eight metastases with baseline edema volume greater than 40 cc, edema volume decreased from 77.27±37.21 cc to 24.84±35.6 cc (p=0.034). Reductions in brain edema were greater in metastases for which non-small-cell lung carcinoma and breast cancers were the primary diseases. Overall, symptoms improved in most patients. No patients who were without symptoms or who had no signs of increased intracranial pressure at baseline developed signs of intracranial pressure following LINAC radiosurgery. In this series, LINAC stereotactic radiosurgery for metastatic brain lesions resulted in early reduction in brain edema volume in single metastasis patients and those with large edema volumes, and reduced the need for steroids.