PhD defence S.P.R. (Sven) Luijten

Brief summary of the doctoral thesis:

Imaging traditionally only played a pivotal role in diagnosing ischemic stroke, but is currently also essential to guide patient selection for recanalization therapies and evaluating treatment success. In this thesis, moving beyond these purposes of imaging, I assessed and identified imaging markers that affect patient prognosis and efficacy of endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) with the ultimate goal of predicting functional outcome and benefit of EVT in individual patients.

Part I – Imaging before ischemic stroke treatment The first part of this thesis focuses on imaging performed with CT before ischemic stroke treatment. Specifically, I evaluated an algorithm for automated large vessel occlusion (LVO) detection; investigated the influence of pre-existing imaging markers of brain frailty on functional outcome and efficacy of EVT; and developed and validated a CT imaging-based model to predict functional outcome and benefit of EVT in individual patients.

Part II – Imaging after ischemic stroke treatment The second part of this thesis focuses on imaging performed with MRI after stroke treatment. I particularly focused on methods used to quantify cerebral blood flow (CBF) and assess reperfusion after EVT, and on methods used to assess ICH as well as the reliability of assessing ICH on MRI.