Abstract 721: More Severe Brain Damage Found in Cholesterol-embolic Stroke Compared with Clot-embolic Stroke

Abstract

Objectives: The nature and feature between cholesterol and blood clot emboli are significantly different. The aim of this study was to investigate if any difference in ischemic brain damage caused by cholesterol emboli vs. clot emboli. Methods: Embolic stroke model was created using Sprague-Dawley rats. They were randomly divided into control (Ctrl), cholesterol emboli (ChE), and clot emboli (ClE) groups. Plaques and blood samples were collected from the patients who underwent carotid endarterectomy. Plaques were rinsed and heated at 100 o C for 60 minutes to denature protein. Plaques and blood clots were broken into 0.30 - 0.35mm and diluted into a final concentration of 1,000 fragments per 100μL. Normal saline, the cholesterol emboli and blood clot emboli suspensions (300μL) were separately injected, according to different groups, into rat brains via left internal carotid artery. The animals were sacrificed at 24 hours post injection and brain ischemia was assessed using pathological H/E staining. Neuropathologic injury in hippocampus (CA1, CA2, CA3, and DG) was scored from 1 to 5 (Figure 1). Results: The brain injury scores of the three groups were analyzed using Student-Newman-Keuls Test. Both ClE and ChE groups had significant higher injury scores compared to Ctrl group (p<0.05, respectively). The Injury score of ChE group was significantly higher than that of ClE group (p<0.05) (Figure 1). Conclusions: The findings suggest that cholesterol embolization results in more severe damage in rat brain, compared to blood clot embolization. It may imply that clinical presentations and treatment outcomes of embolic strokes can be affected by different sources of emboli.