Proceedings of Recent Developments and Future Directions in Stroke Management and Prevention Symposium

During the XIX European Stroke Conference (Barcelona, Spain, 25th–28th May, 2010), a meeting on Recent Developments and Future Directions in Stroke Management and Prevention was held with the sponsorship of Grupo Ferrer, Barcelona, Spain. During this meeting, 542 attendees from 50 countries worldwide met for a full-day session in a forum that brought together stroke leaders from Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom. The proceedings of the meeting are summarized in this special issue of Stroke that includes recent advances in the field of stroke research, including some previously unpublished material, as well as a number of unmet clinical challenges and potential therapies. We believe that this externally peer-reviewed supplement will be of interest to the Stroke audience.Professor Louis Caplan1 provides a fascinating historical introduction on the classification of stroke. He describes his pioneering role in the 1970s to establish the first computer-based diagnostic program for stroke, an effort that eventually led to the Harvard Stroke Registry and the Stroke Data Bank. By the 1980s, the development of imaging techniques had improved the diagnostic accuracy of stroke subtypes and their pathogenesis. The fruits of those early efforts are reflected in the multiple, national, and international stroke data bases that continue to provide epidemiological and clinical data, demonstrating wide ethnic and geographical differences in the pathogenesis of stroke subtypes.Classically, the concept of ischemic penumbra designates areas of hypoperfused brain …