Letter by Estol Regarding Article, “New Strategy to Reduce the Global Burden of Stroke”

The authors of this interesting initiative propose the use of a Stroke Riskometer app as a new strategy for stroke prevention.1 Their idea is original and in line with current technological trends. It remains to be confirmed whether this effort will be successful in accomplishing what is an eminently clinical task. However, if results are not as expected, can we afford to add 10 more years of millions of dead stroke patients while experimenting with a new strategy? Shouldn ’ t we focus on already proven yet underused conventional vascular prevention programs?The authors are correct about the immense value of new technology, but may not be considering that because advances are in fact so radical, this per se limits our capacity to accurately make forecasts about their success even in the short-term. In 1995, ≈150 million people worldwide had cell phones and just 20 years later, the number is close to 5 billion. Since 2009, 75 billion apps have been downloaded. Influenced by this technology …