Dr. Leiva-Salinas' Research

The overall focuses of Dr. Leiva research are:

a) to standardize perfusion CT software packages in order to allow for a reliable treatment decision  independent of the type of scanner and  post-processing package

b) to identify CT and MR based markers for better diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment selection in acute stroke and occlusive cerebrovascular disease patients

c) to obtain data that will hopefully result in the development of strategies to prevent stroke in children.

SSPERT project - Standardization of Stroke Perfusion-CT for Reperfusion Therapy

The purpose of this project is to harmonize the different available perfusion-CT software packages in terms of the volumes of infarct core and of penumbra, so that any stroke patient, scanned on any type of scanner will be diagnosed with similar values and, therefore, the treatment decision is made independent of the type of scanner and post- processing package. This project will be the first step towards future clinical trials using any of the harmonized perfusion-CT software packages to identify CT based biomarkers that can be safely used to select acute ischemic patients for reperfusion therapy in an extended time window and, thus, to improve clinical outcome.

VIPS study -Vascular Effects of Infection in Pediatric Stroke

This international multicenter study is aimed to determine whether recent infection and inflammation predict arteriopathy in children with arterial ischemic stroke. This data will hopefully result in the development of strategies to prevent stroke in children, and to improve outcome of children with stroke.

Performance of “SmartRisk” Prediction of Stroke and Stroke-related Events in Carotid Atherosclerosis

The goal of this study is to determine whether the SmartRisk module, a software that uses MRI data to compute a risk assessment from a specific atherosclerotic plaque, is effective at stratifying risk of a carotid-related cerebrovascular event in subjects with asymptomatic 50-79% carotid stenosis. Typically this group of patients do not undergo intervention to treat the stenosis because the procedural risks overweigh the benefits. If this technique is able to reliably identify patients with carotid disease that are at high risk of stroke, it would positively impact management.