Annually, it is estimated that more than 795,000 Americans experience a stroke. The severity of neurological damage due to an acute stroke is mitigated by the early restoration of blood flow to the affected area; and more people are now surviving strokes through earlier intervention with thrombolytic agents and interventional clot retrieval devices. Unfortunately, the rapid development of new drugs and devices in this area has made it difficult to provide treatment guidance for a given patient, and metrics for comparing outcomes between treatment groups are lacking.

This R01 focused on the creation of an observational database for acute stroke treatment. From this database, an influence diagram was established, using information on patient presentation, medical history, imaging, and available treatment drugs/devices to compute an optimal treatment decision maximizing outcomes and other considerations (e.g., quality of life). This project aimed to provide new insights and informatics-based tools to better guide and individually tailor acute stroke treatment , optimizing patients’ long-term health outcomes.