Last Monday, January 14, the teaching building of the Hospital Arnau de Vilanova hosted the defense of the doctoral thesis "Clinical, radiological, prognostic and biomarker profile characterization of subjects with non-lacunar cryptogenic ischemic stroke of embolic mechanism", developed by Dr. Jessica Molina, attached to the Neurology service of HUMT. Dr. F. Purroy Garcia, medical director of the Arnau de Vilanova Hospital and principal investigator of the Clinical Neurosciences Group of the Biomedical Research Institute (IRB) of Lleida, was in charge of directing and mentoring it.

As described in the paper (which has received an excellent rating, pending Cum Laude), in recent years the interest in knowing the clinical and prognostic characteristics of a new subtype of ischemic stroke known as Esus (Lío Stroke Undetermined Source) to offer an adequate preventive treatment.

Although the main etiological suspicion in these patients is an undetected paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (AF), the hypothesis of the study is that these ESUS subjects present clinical, radiological, biomarker profile and prognostic characteristics that differentiate them from the other subtypes, including those caused by de novo FA. Regarding the results of the thesis, they would confirm this hypothesis and, consequently, it would be suggested that not all ESUS subjects control their etiology in an undetected cardioembolic source.

Dr. Jerzy Krupinski, head of the Neurology service of HUMT, was in charge of presiding over the court, Dr. Silvia Bielsa, internist of the University Hospital Arnau de Vilanova was his secretary and Dr. Ana Rodríguez, coordinator of the stroke section of the Neurology service of the Hospital del Mar was his vocal.