The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai joins a top-flight network of 25 regional stroke centers announced by the National Institute of Health that will focus on prevention, treatment, and recovery from stroke. As part of the NIH Stroke Trials Network (NIHStrokeNet), the medical school will receive a 5-year, $1.3 million grant to build a collaborative research infrastructure for a regional coordinating stroke center.

"As conceived by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the network is intended to improve the efficiency with which we perform clinical trials in stroke," said Stanley Tuhrim, MD, one of principal investigators of the inaugural NYC Collaborative Stroke Center and Director of the Mount Sinai Stroke Center. "The goal of our effort is to pull together several major medical institutions in the City [Mount Sinai Health System, and several hospitals affiliated with Albert Einstein College of Medicine , and NYU School of Medicine] to perform clinical trials and develop and test ways of improving acute stroke treatment, prevention and rehabilitation he added. "We hope to be able to get trials done more expeditiously." To that end, the New York City Collaborative Regional Coordinating Center (NYCCRCC) will work with sister programs across the nation, the National Coordinating Center at the University of Cincinnati, and NINDS .

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke will fund and manage the stroke network. NINDS has spearheaded advances in stroke prevention, treatment, and recovery.

The NYCC-RCC research team, working with the extended stroke community, will propose and conduct stroke protocols to be administered within the network and also train the next generation of clinical researchers in stroke. The network concept emerged from an NINDS planning effort in which stroke experts were asked what they viewed as most important in reducing death and disability due to stroke in the United States. Building a more seamless transition from safety and efficacy trials and phase II and III clinical trials was given top priority.

Earlier this year, Mount Sinai Medical Center became the first medical center in New York State to be recognized by The Joint Commission with Disease-Specific Care Comprehensive Stroke Center Certification. The Certification recognizes those hospitals that have state-of-the-art infrastructure, staff, and training to treat patients with the most complex strokes.

A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is interrupted, causing brain cells in the immediate area to die because they stop getting oxygen. Stroke can also occur when a vessel breaks and bleeds into the brain. Nearly 800,000 strokes are reported each year in the U.S.. NIH StrokeNet is focused on advancing the treatment of acute stroke, both ischemic and intracerebral strokes.