A four-day training programme for neurologists managing acute strokes and neuro intervention experts, organised by the ComprehensiveStroke Care Programme and the Department of Imaging Sciences and Intervention Radiology at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), begins in the capital on Thursday.
Asian Stroke Summer School 2022 is a four-day teaching course that involves acute interdisciplinary stroke treatment where young neurologists join hands with neurointerventionalists to improve the treatment of acute stroke.
The previous editions of this training programme were conducted mostly in European nations and this is the first time the event is being held in India. SCTIMST is organising the event in collaboration with the University of Bern, Switzerland.
The four-day event will be formally inaugurated by Health Minister Veena George on December 9.
Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability and mortality. Despite the advancements in stroke management, because of the lack of trained professionals, there are only 300 stroke units and less than 150 thrombectomy centres in the country.
The highlight of the event is the training imparted to physicians and interventionalists in intravenous thrombolysis and thrombectomy procedures (an emergency treatment for acute ischemic stroke where big clots block the main blood vessels in the brain).
The course is intended to improve the expertise of the physicians and interventionalists in acute stroke management and help them save more lives.
The course directors are P.N. Sylaja, Professor and Head, Department of Neurology, in-charge of the Comprehensive Stroke Care Programme; Dr. E Jayadevan, Professor, Department of Imaging Sciences and Intervention Radiology, SCTIMST; Jan Gralla, Professor and Head of Neuroradiology, Neurocenter, Inselspital, Bern, Switzerland; and Urs Fischer, Professor of Neurology and chairman, Department of Neurology, University Hospital Basel, Switzerland.