Early diagnosis and endovascular interventions for ischemic stroke.

In recent years there have been formidable advances in the war against stroke. The understanding and detection of stroke have undergone major progress at a rate previously unseen, partly due to major contributions from neuroradiology. Current routine neuroradiologic evaluation of acute stroke relies mainly on computed tomography scanning, although a number of radiologic modalities are becoming available that are based on various physical and chemical tissue properties, such as magnetic resonance imaging, single photon emission computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. All these new techniques allow the study of nervous tissue at the cellular and biochemical levels. A review of current diagnostic techniques for stroke follows in the first part of this article. The current status of endovascular therapy for ischemic stroke is reviewed in the second part of this article.