A new clinical trial from Canada may change the way hospitals diagnose strokes—and help prevent future ones. The study, led by researchers from the London Health Sciences Centre Research Institute (LHSCRI) and Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, has found that including the heart in early CT scans after a stroke significantly improves doctors’ ability to find hidden blood clots.
The findings, published in The Lancet Neurology, show that extending CT imaging to include the heart and major blood vessels—right after a stroke patient arrives at the hospital—can reveal dangerous clots that might otherwise go undetected. This gives doctors critical information to decide on the best treatment and prevent more strokes in the future.
Most strokes—about 85%—are ischemic, meaning they’re caused by a blockage that stops blood from flowing to parts of the brain. These blockages often come from clots, but it’s not always clear where the clot came from.
Sometimes, the source is the heart, especially in cases of irregular heart rhythms like atrial fibrillation. But without seeing the heart right away, doctors might miss it.
“Finding out where the clot started is key,” explains Dr. Luciano Sposato, the study’s senior author and a neurologist at London Health Sciences Centre. “If we know the clot came from the heart, then we typically treat with blood thinners, which help prevent future strokes.”
The study included 465 patients who came to the hospital with a stroke or a mini-stroke, known as a transient ischemic attack. Researchers used a slightly modified CT scan that included the heart and the aorta—the large artery that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. This extended scan takes only a few minutes longer and didn’t delay any urgent care.
What they found was remarkable: this enhanced CT scan detected six times more heart clots than the standard approach. That means for every 14 patients scanned using the new method, one additional clot was found—clots that might have been missed with regular scanning.
Without this new approach, many of these strokes would have remained a mystery, classified as having an “undetermined cause.” That makes it harder for doctors to choose the best treatment to prevent a second, possibly more serious stroke.
Dr. Rodrigo Bagur, a cardiologist and co-author of the study, noted that some patients’ clots were only found thanks to this extended scan. “If we didn’t do it, those clots might never have been discovered,” he said.
This study could lead to changes in stroke care around the world. It shows that a small change in how doctors use CT scans—by including the heart—can give big benefits. It not only helps find the cause of a stroke but can guide doctors in choosing safer, more targeted treatments. Most importantly, it could help save lives by preventing future strokes before they happen.
If you care about stroke, please read studies that diets high in flavonoids could help reduce stroke risk, and MIND diet could slow down cognitive decline after stroke.
For more health information, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce the risk of dementia, and tea and coffee may help lower your risk of stroke, dementia.
The research findings can be found in The Lancet Neurology.
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