JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Dr. Thomas Brott, a neurosurgeon at the Mayo Clinic, said about 100,000 people a year go under the knife to prevent stroke. They either get surgery or a stent.
"Those are excellent, safe treatments," he said.
Now, he's about to embark on a new study to find out if medicine can be just as effective.
"The medicines that so many people in Jacksonville take every day -- the statins, the blood pressure medicines, drugs for diabetes," he said. "The medical treatments now are so good, that we can ask the question, which is better?"
The study is being funded by a $39.5 million grant awarded to the Mayo Clinic. It funds a seven-year clinical trial that will enroll nearly 2,500 patients in 120 centers in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia.
Action News asked Brott why the Jacksonville campus was chosen to lead the study.
He said, "The doctors and the other health professionals here have been interested in carotid disease for a long time."
Brott has already led one successful stroke study. He says the number of stroke patients has been cut in half over the past 30 years because people have quit smoking and because of significant advances in the treatment of high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.
If this study is also successful, he says it will change stroke treatment worldwide.
"The results of this trial will definitely guide treatment of carotid narrowing around the United States and even beyond the United States -- really around the world," he said.
See the article here:
Stroke study could change treatment worldwide