UF earns $38 million grant to lead stroke prevention trial

doctor hoh smiles at the camera with a suit on

By Michelle Jaffee

The National Institutes of Health on Tuesday, Aug. 31 awarded a $38 million, five-year grant to Brian Hoh, M.D., M.B.A., the University of Florida’s chair of neurosurgery, to test two new prospective treatments for symptomatic intracranial arterial stenosis, a leading cause of ischemic stroke worldwide.

Intracranial arterial stenosis is a severe narrowing of an artery in the brain, and this condition accounts for 8-10% of all strokes in the U.S., about 80,000 per year. More than 20% of patients with this type of stenosis who receive current treatment still experience stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage or vascular death within a year. Ischemic strokes, the most common type of stroke, result when a vessel supplying blood to the brain is blocked by a clot.

“Clearly there is a need for better treatment,” said Hoh, who will lead the large national phase 3 clinical trial with co-principal investigator Marc Chimowitz, MBChB, a professor of neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Read the full news release.