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T h e S t r o k e C o u n c i l

This quarter’s Council Connections is largely devoted to

news from the 2005 International Stroke Conference

(ISC), held Feb. 2–4 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This

meeting continues to grow in scope and attendance. It has

been and continues to be the premier meeting for medical

professionals involved in the care of patients with stroke or at

risk for stroke. Next year’s meeting will be on Feb. 16–18,

2006, in Kissimmee, Florida, just 30 miles south of Orlando.

A Few Selected Highlights from the

2005 ISC

• The total registration for the meeting was 3,626, well over

last year’s record of 2,978.

• The Nurses Symposium, a full-day program offered the day

before the ISC opened, has grown from 90 stroke nurse

attendees in 2002, its first year, to over 500 this year. This

continues to be a tremendous forum for nurses involved in

stroke care.

• The 8th Joint Meeting of the American Society of

Interventional and Therapeutic Neuroradiology and the Joint

Section of the American Association of Neurological

Surgeons and the Congress of Neurological Surgeons was

held concurrently with the ISC, rather than as a satellite

meeting as it has been in the past. This opportunity allowed

for the development of a day of joint programming and an

afternoon session at the ISC open to joint meeting

registrants. These sessions were very well attended.

• The William M. Feinberg Award for Excellence in

Clinical Stroke was awarded to John R. Marler, MD.

Dr. Marler has been the Associate Director for Clinical

Trials at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and

Stroke since 1999. He is the scientific leader of the NINDS

Clinical Trial Group. Prior to that he had been a program

director for clinical research in stroke. He was the project

leader for the landmark NINDS TPA Stroke Trial and the

NINDS Master Agreement for Cerebrovascular Research.

He has administered many large NIH multi-center clinical

trials in stroke. He completed his neurology residency

training at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

• This year’s Thomas Willis Lecture was delivered by

Dr. Vladimir Hachinski. Dr. Hachinski is Chair of the

Department of Clinical Neurological Sciences at The

Message From the EditorColin P. Derdeyn, MD, FAHA

State-of-the-Art Nursing Symposium 2005

L–R: Philip B. Gorelick, MD, MPH, FACP, presented the 2005 William M.Feinberg Award for Excellence in Clinical Stroke to John R. Marler, MD.

R–L: Costantino Iadecola, MD, FAHA, presented the 2005 Thomas WillisLecture Award to Vladimir Hachinski.

University of Western Ontario and the editor-in-chief of the

journal, Stroke. A professor at Western since 1980,

Dr. Hachinski is best known for his pioneering research on

new treatments for stroke prevention, the relationship

between stroke, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and the

connection between the heart and the brain during a stroke.

• This meeting is the premier forum for reporting the results

of clinical and basic investigations in cerebrovascular

disease. News releases from the ISC can be found on

strokeconference.org.

StrokeAwarenessNews

The “Larry King Live” show on Friday,Jan. 28, on CNN was devoted tostroke awareness. Several guests

shared their experiences of surviving astroke and discussed the importance ofstroke awareness and education. Theguests included Cindy McCain, a strokesurvivor and wife of Arizona Sen. JohnMcCain; Leann Hendrix, 1998 Miss Arizonaand stroke survivor at age 26; actor andstroke survivor Robert Guillaume;American Stroke Association nationalspokesperson Dr. Larry Goldstein; andactor/director James Woods, who directedthe ASA/Ad Council public serviceannouncements. The PSAs were shownduring the program, along with videofootage of Mrs. McCain participating in therecent P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll ArizonaMarathon while wearing her Train To EndStroke singlet.

On February 17, the television show “ER”featured a young mother with an acuteischemic stroke. She was treatedsuccessfully with a mechanical device toremove the clot from a brain artery andmade a good recovery.

StrokeAwarenessNews L–R: Philip B. Gorelick, MD, MPH, FACP, presented the Robert G. Siekert

New Investigator Award in Stroke to Shelagh Coutts, MD, for herabstract, “Presence of DWI Lesion on Acute MRI In Minor Stroke + TIAPatients Predicts Recurrent Stroke.”

Hong Li, MD, MS, is the recipient of the Mordecai Y. T. Globus NewInvestigator Award in Stroke for her abstract, “Gender Differences inNeuronal Cell Death After Oxygen-glucose Deprivation in OrganotypicHippocampal Cultures.”

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