BUBL Trial Results

Stroke care has advanced dramatically in recent years, allowing an ever-increasing number of patients to survive and thrive after a stroke.¹ However, this post-stroke population remains at high risk of recurrence. A right-to-left shunt (RLS) is known to be a risk factor for stroke as it provides a conduit for a venous clot to travel to the brain. The current standard of care for RLS detection is to perform a transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) exam. TTE is widely available, but an imperfect screener for RLS due to its low sensitivity (45% SEN, 99% SPE).² In a recent clinical trial, the NovaGuide Intelligent Ultrasound demonstrated significant improvement in RLS detection and was ~3 times more likely to diagnose RLS than TTE.3

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1. Reem Waziry, Alis Heshmatollah, Daniel Bos, Lori B. Chibnik, M. Arfan Ikram, Albert Hofman, M. Kamran Ikram. Time Trends in Survival Following First Hemorrhagic or Ischemic Stroke Between 1991 and 2015 in the Rotterdam Study. Stroke. 2020; 51(3), 824-829. Link to citation here.
2. ‍Katsanos, A. H., Psaltopoulou, T., Sergentanis, T. N., Frogoudaki, A., Vrettou, A. R., Ikonomidis, I., … Tsivgoulis, G. (2016). Transcranial Doppler versus transthoracic echocardiography for the detection of patent foramen ovale in patients with cryptogenic cerebral ischemia: A systematic review and diagnostic test accuracy meta-analysis. Annals of Neurology, 79(4), 625–635. Link to citation here.
3. Rubin et al Stroke publication (Rubin, M. N., Shah, R., Devlin, T., Youn, T. S., Waters, M. F., Volpi, J. J., Stayman, A., Douville, C. M., Lowenkopf, T., Tsivgoulis, G., & Alexandrov, A. v. (2023). Robot-Assisted Transcranial Doppler Versus Transthoracic Echocardiography for Right to Left Shunt Detection. Stroke, 54(11), 2842–2850. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.123.043380)