Stroke is the 4th leading cause of death and a leading cause of disability in the United States. It is imperative that new treatments for stroke prevention, acute therapy, and recovery be efficiently developed. This application is to form a Los Angeles - Southern California Regional Coordinating Center (LASC RCC) that will marshal a network of 49 acute stroke and rehabilitation medical centers in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, to perform 5-10 NINDS Stroke Clinical Trial Network prevention, acute, and recovery clinical trials efficiently and excellently. Participating hospitals in the network include 7 acadeic and 33 mixed academic-community and community medical centers. Twelve Working Groups with expertise in specific neurovascular research domains will facilitate trial implementation within the Network and serve as a resource to the RCC leadership and to individual performance sites. The four specific aims of this proposal are to: 1) perform high quality NINDS Stroke Clinical Trial (NSTN) acute and prevention trials throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties; 2) perform high quality NSTN recovery and rehabilitation trials throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties; 3) ensure participation of high volumes of underserved populations in NSTN trials, including women, Hispanic-American, African- American, and other minority populations; and 4) educate fellows, residents, medical students, premedical students, and junior faculty to engage in stroke translational research.
Stroke is the 4th leading cause of death in the United States (and 2nd leading cause of death worldwide), and a leading cause of disability. It is imperative tha new treatments for stroke prevention, acute therapy, and recovery be efficiently developed.
